Distance Learning India 2003

Technology choices for distance education

Several private and public institutions have come forward with complete solutions for creating virtual classrooms anywhere, anytime with connectivity to a main resource center. The equipment to facilitate teacher-student interaction, both one- and two-way, is available.

Some of these companies and their technologies or equipment are:

SpaceTeach: An education dissemination application that provides an excellent combination of quality, quantity and content, ensuring enriched learning experience. With SpaceTeach, institutions can deploy best of talent across the country and the Satellite Video multicast facilitates creation of a national virtual classroom. A centralized instruction resource could combine the best quality and content for the audience. Moreover, the video/chat return channel offers benefits of interactive learning.

DiRECWAY Global Education: Floated by Hughes Escorts Communications Ltd. (HECL), DiRECWAY is a comprehensive, end-to-end satellite broadband service. The platform enables greater price-performance ratio using satellite broadband network, and by allowing service providers to drive innovative applications on the network, says Amit Tripathy, vice president, DiRECWAY. "Our platform has redefined the very concept of classroom education retaining all its benefits, improving reach and enhancing the collaborative group learning."

CyberBazaar: The online classroom CyberBazaar presents is a multimedia communications service delivering live, interactive online training. "It is live and integrative," stresses Sandeep Mehra, director -- sales and marketing. Participating students only need a PC with an Internet browser, telephone and soundcard for VoIP. The instructor will additionally need a Web camera. The content can be in any format.

Its online classroom has built-in devices for assessing the learners' knowledge and performance, and manages the training schedule as well. An additional feature is its ability to capture valuable information and reports for post-session management. The platform is useful for core corporate training, business unit specific training and extended enterprise interaction. "Cost savings and productivity gains are the highest in online delivery," adds Mehra.

SARAS: Excel-Soft Technologies has developed an instructional management system using shareable content object reference model with different assessment systems. "The system, named SARAS, has multiple content development sites and capacity for synchronous and asynchronous collaborations, learning management, reports, etc., with live or archived on-demand video-based lessons," says David Gardner, director-innovation, Dynamic Distance Learning Ltd.

Vidinet: The "Vidinet" technology developed by VGA Systems for one-to-many data distribution over video broadcast allows sending a single copy of data content to multiple users via video broadcast. Vidinet provides dynamic Internet content distribution through TV broadcast via constant and uninterrupted data supply, unlike IP that sends data information in packets, points out Jitendra Joshi, owner, VGA Systems. At the sender's end, the system encodes, encrypts and inserts data into the TV signal. At the receiver's end, it decodes and decrypts data from the TV signal and stores it on a PC hard disk with associated client-receive software. The system plays streaming services using RealVideo.

Deepthought: From corporate boardrooms to literacy environment, Applied Electro-Magnetics (AEM) provides distance learning technologies of a high order, points out Neeraj Aggarwal, head, product development of AEM India Pvt. Ltd. Audio channels on multiple return path are expensive. To provide personal interactivity, each attending student must have at least one PC plus other infrastructure. "That's where we come in," says Aggarwal. He calls this innovation "a Deepthought on the remote school next door." The system allows the simultaneous delivery of live lectures and presentations to remote classrooms.

AEM's platform consists of distributed management software, data center for sorting records, scheduling classes and administrative functions. It needs authoring tools and scientific course designs, studio accessories, student consoles, resources and classroom equipment. The deskmate console is the critical equipment. It has a special function keypad, an LCD and a built-in mic that enables answering questions asked by the teacher. Connectivity is possible via different delivery systems, including satellite, cable modems, ASDL, ISDN, T1/T3 lines, etc. Aggarwal envisages connectivity growing into a facility like cybercafes -- an array of distant classrooms connecting small towns with the metros in an interactive mode for delivering instructional modules across the country.

Enlitor: As an e-learning and training methodology of the future, the "enlitor" from Intelsys, an enterprise networked learning and intelligent tutoring platform, is a learner driven anytime-anywhere module. S. Chakraborty, CEO of the NSE IT-Intelsys joint venture, says the system redefines e-learning. The technology consists of front-end browser with HTML/JavaScript, Web server supporting Microsoft IIS 5 and .Net with ASO.Net and VB.Net. XML Web services, RDBMS server and connectivity to databases. The scalable architecture ensures future growth. The system can identify weak areas automatically and the learner and the instructor can see progress.