A STUDY OF VIDEO-BASED DISTANCE LEARNING
TECHNOLOGIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Yi-Te Wu, Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, Far East College
ABSTRACT
New e-learning technology alters radically both distance education and conventional higher education. Indeed, the emerging use of the Internet has brought the world more closely. It not only facilitates learners but also enhances learning opportunities. The Internet, compressed video, and satellite technologies give instructors and learners combine together, they can communication anytime, anywhere. The new technology really makes lifelong learning come true.
In this paper, we will focus on how the instructors use video-based distance learning technologies to promote the easiness of knowledge access and learners’ satisfaction.
Keyword： e-learning, distance learning education, video-based distance learning technology
1. Introduction
A decade ago, the computer was a glorified calculator and typewriter. Distance learning applications are becoming more and more commonplace today. With the rapid growth worldwide of teaching and learning on the Internet, more and more attention is being paid to the nature and quality of online higher education. Distance learning has become the focus of a great deal of attention in higher education circles in the past few years. While a fascination with the technology has led to enthusiasm from many, it has met with equally intense opposition from others.
Video-based distance learning is the use of electronic telecommunications equipment such as cable transmissions, fiber optics, satellites, telephones, and television to send instructional programming to learners. To create educational telecommunication networks can offer the educational opportunities to the students and it can promote the educational qualities for rural areas.
Video-based distance learning gives the students more interactive educational opportunities and exciting learning experiences they never had before. Providing distance learning with video-based equipment has promoted the educational standard and it circulates the instructional information. It really promotes the interactivity between instructors and learners effectively.
2. The reasons for using video-based media as instructional tools
Distance learning is so different from traditional learning. If learners and instructors cannot act interactively, then distance learning is not perfect. Today, most distance learning courseware still uses
the primordial technology, like ListServe news or discussion groups, low-bandwidth internet connections, text-based Web pages, etc. We should understand designing the distance learning courses with graphics, streaming audio, and video is necessary.
Interaction is the key issue facing distance education program. Lack of face-to-face contact between instructors and students is often cited as the major drawback to distance education. Making use all the possible ways to attract the attention of learners is one of the ways to promote interactivity.
The difference between distance learning and traditional classroom based instruction has been increasingly discussed. Distance learning is an great alternative to traditional education for learner who unable to attend the class due to time, geography, or personal reasons.
Distance Education program is pleased to offer beginning and experienced educators fully accredited coursework delivered via the Internet and two-way interactive video. Topics range widely across the elementary and secondary curricula, offering graduate-level credit that will help meet certification and rectification requirements in school districts across the country and around the world: video courses. In distance learning, students will work involve activities and/or research that could have a significant positive impact both on instructors and students.
However, problems within distance education are costly and complexity because it involves expert facilitators to design such systems. Timely feedback is essential due to the students are likely to feel isolated through distance learning education. The increasing amount and rate of change of information in our society are so rapid that we need to explore the new avenue of learning by distance.
Video-based distance learning technologies offer a myriad of benefits includes convenience, flexibility, and effectiveness. New ways of providing access to education for higher education are now being reformed. Some distance education systems use two-way interactive video connections to particular locations where students gather. With video and audio streaming new available, the Internet appears to be the technology of choice for systems where students have access to computers.
One very interesting idea the author point out: due to the distinction between distance education and local education is very blur, at least 95 percent of instruction in the US will digitally enhanced by year 2025. The virtual university has been born and is growing rapidly; it will be the prevailing fashion of higher education in near future.
3. What can be done using video-based technologies as instructional tools
Distance learning, is a flexible training method, which lets people access training materials anytime, anywhere, is quickly emerging as a tool for attracting and keeping top information system talent. Distance learning can combine videoconferencing, collaboration on the Web, instructor-led training via live video stream, computer based training and the ability to access stored videos and demand.
Video conferencing technology can provide not only the excellent learning environment for higher education but also the ultimate in career education. Video conferencing technology can connect both ways and parties, they can benefit from each other and they can get what they want. Video conferencing can be used in many way, for example, it can be used for distance learning courses and degree programs, inservice training, intern supervision, and so on.
Interactive television networks have been established for the purpose of “course sharing” between schools and they can solve the problems of “teacher shortages”. Interactive television networks give schools the opportunity to enroll their students in undergraduate courses at local universities and colleges. Interactive television provides a means of developing new strategies and opportunities for students to learn.
Distance education use different media to vary extents. It includes mail, fax machine, radio, television, satellite broadcasts, audiotapes, videotapes, videoconferencing and Internet. Interactive audio and video communications between sites allow teachers at universities to conduct courses for students at any or all of the schools participating in the same project. Interactive videoconferencing provides the opportunity for a professor to teach class in a traditional classroom while concurrently instructing different groups of students in other classrooms via video. Technology provides another delivery method for the teaching and learning of a subject matter. The key to effective learning is the interactivity of the student and of the student to instructor.
Interactive multimedia instructional software allows students to replay learning segments and explore new subjects at a depth appropriate to their own needs. New networked technologies also serve the specialized physical needs of students and faculty with disabilities. For instance, the time-shifted learning means by using combination of personal computer, digital television and electronic libraries via multimedia servers and network-based delivery systems, colleges and universities of tomorrow can loosen the rigidity of the class schedule, relieving space pressures and accommodating complex schedules of the non-traditional student.
4. The real cases of video-based distance learning in higher education
[Case 1] The School of Isolated and Distance Education (SID E) used VTEL videoconferencing system as their primary equipment to let students in small country schools have the opportunity to experience a fully interactive multimedia learning environment. Using this system the students can conduct a laboratory experiments under their teacher’s watch from different place and it let the students and teachers can share computer programs.
VTEL videoconferencing system gives the students more interactive educational opportunities and exciting learning experiences they never had before. Providing distance learning with VTEL equipment has promoted the educational standard and it circulates the instructional information. It really promotes the interactivity between instructors and learners effectively.
[Case 2] A majority of today’s college students face circumstances that make it difficult to study full time on campus. They may have jobs, children, or impairments to their mobility that prevent them from attending college easily; however, there are ways in which colleges and universities can help these students by changing the uses of educational resources.
Distance learning, is maturing, and at the same time consolidating to provide more and more course offerings from a single source. Several distance learning content specialists emphasize beefed-up training program to enhance the effectiveness of distance educators, and hardware companies are coming up with new ways to free these instructors from the single-camera “talking, head” teaching, style enforced upon them in the past.
The Concordia University Education Network (CUENet) connects the networks of its ten campuses, enabling them to share their unique resources. This system adopted videoconferencing as their most important technology to communicate each other because the communication ability of video and audio in real time between two distant classrooms is provided. CUENet’s videoconferencing technology transmits a television picture over conventional telephone lines, it has become one of the most economical methods of face-to-face communications. When this system was implemented, it has enhanced the unity of the ten campuses and has provided the easier way for faculty members from different places to collaborate on special academic projects and let students throughout the country to interact with each other.
[Case 3] Morehead State University (MSU) utilize technology to present information in full motion video and audio, voice-activated or push-to-talk microphone, and a touch-controlled computer panel. Compressed video is not the only distance learning option in MSU. They also offer Internet based course by an Internet Classroom called Course Information.
This automation versus redirection analogy is a revealing one because it is very much at the center of the debate regarding the implementation of distance learning in universities. Many of the issues and problems surrounding distance learning are a result of conceiving of the use of technology to automate traditional teaching. While there is a great deal of evidence and experience to show that distance learning through videotape and the internet can be very successful, conceiving of it as an imitation of the classroom experience leads inevitably to negative comparisons.
5. Conclusion
Distance education refers to education or training courses delivered to off-campus locations via audio, video, or computer hook ups. It not only provides greater access, it also provides alternative ways of delivering new educational opportunities. Peter Drucker stated “thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics.” Distance education is a certain trend.
Distance education is delivering educational materials and information to the world anywhere, anytime. It can facilitate learners to discover new knowledge. It makes the people who have family or work commitments can continue their studying plans. Instructors use some media like cable television, two-way video and audio, videocassette to reach the objectives of distance education, and learners use the same ways to communicate with their teachers or classmates at a distance site. They can really interact with each other.
Distance learning makes education more convenient and flexible. Some institutions offer online courses to meet a customer demand, especially in business and industry training. Managers do not want their production schedule to be delayed because their employee training. But distance learning make employee training more flexible, they can choose their time to access to long distance site to learn some knowledge about their works.
Sometimes popular movie is attractive to the public. And we will not feel boring when we watch such kind of programs. The reason is the quality and fidelity is so wonderful. The film producer spend a lot of money in it, they need a vast team to cooperate together and they use the most recently computer technologies to synthesize this film. In order to produce one high-performance and high-quality file,
they invest a lot. But how about higher education courseware is going? Fewer people devote the expertise and energy to create the next generation of educational software.
Distance education is delivering educational materials and information to the world anywhere, anytime. It can facilitate learners to discover new knowledge. It makes the people who have family or work commitments can continue their studying plans. Instructors use some media like cable television, two-way video and audio, videocassette to reach the objectives of distance education, and learners use the same ways to communicate with their teachers or classmates at a distance site. They can really interact with each other.
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