World Telecommunication Day 1999 |
Countries around the world are working to integrate the latest communications technologies, including the Internet, into their education systems. Governments, educational institutions, private enterprises and international organizations are all involved in these developments.
In a report titled ''Challenges to the Network: The Internet and Development,'' published in February 1999, the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union (ITU) cites distance learning as having the potential to become one of the most important applications for the Internet, especially in developing countries.
One of the benefits of on-line education is the relative ease and low cost of delivering multimedia course content. According to the ITU, production of one hour of quality Internet-based media can cost up to one-tenth less than the $40,000 price of a similar CD-ROM and can reach more classrooms more efficiently. In light of the anticipated benefits, the United States plans to connect the nation's schools to the Internet by 2000 at an estimated cost of $30 billion. France has similar plans, and Italy and Germany recently announced that they will connect 10,000 to 15,000 schools by the millennium.
International organizations such as Unesco and the World Bank are devoting resources to building a global education network, which should benefit developing countries for which the cost of creating the necessary infrastructure often remains prohibitively high.
International programs to link schools on-line have allowed students all over the world to work together on projects in real time. For example, U.S.-based Global Lab has provided over 10,000 students from 400 classrooms in 22 countries with the means to conduct collaborative research in studying environmental issues.
Connecting schools
The United States currently leads the world in terms of Internet-connected schools (89 percent), while 710,000 students took undergraduate and graduate courses on-line last year. The European Union is also promoting the development of new technologies in education from kindergarten through university and adult distance learning.
In January, Europe's nine main European open- and distance-learning (ODL) associations agreed to form a committee to act as a common interface on strategic and operational issues.
Individual countries, meanwhile, are also working to develop on-line learning.
The French government's overall program to promote the information society includes a major push on education. The Education Ministry has created an official ''educationally approved label'' for learning software, and in April, the government earmarked and additional 20 million francs ($3.2 million) to put 5,000 schools on-line.
France Telecom is backing these moves by introducing new products and services that support educational uses of the Internet. ''Our policy is to make France Telecom's Internet services available to schools throughout the country,'' says Mireille Le Van, director of France Telecom's Education Project. ''We offer lower rates to schools and, via our Ambassadeur program, 3,500 of our staff have provided Internet demonstrations to some 160,000 teachers in France.'' Ms. Le Van continues: ''We are currently launching a service called Wanadoo Education, which includes a special search engine specifically adapted to educational needs.'' She adds: ''One of our goals is to encourage classes in different schools to communicate on-line. In our Studio Internet initiative, 60 classes took part in visiting local museums and other places of interest and reporting on their experiences on the Web.''
Public/private
In Germany, the push to wire schools is being driven at both the state and national levels. The private sector is participating in this process by donating redundant computers to schools. The German IT giant Siemens has been an important player in this endeavor, as have the German arms of Hewlett-Packard and IBM. Another public/private initiative involves the development of self-training software for teachers in the new technologies. This year, the German federal government sponsored a national on-line school project on the environment. Called Klimawette (wager on the climate), the project involved 120 schools and 250,000 students.
The British government program to modernize the country's public education system includes plans to invest more than £1 billion ($1.6 billion) in information communications technology over the next three years and to connect every school to the National Grid for Learning, a British education network, by 2002. Under the government's National Grid for Learning Certified Management services, private-sector companies wishing to provide computers, networks, software and other IT services to schools are tested on grounds of quality and cost by the British Educational and Technology Agency (BECTa). In July, the agency accepted bids from 12 companies: Akhter, Bull, Centreprise, Eis Kent, Elonex, Hugh Symond, IBM, Research Machines, XMA, Clifton Reed, Comtec and Xemplar.
How does it work?
Distance learning in itself is not new - correspondence courses in which students receive and expedite material via the mail have existed for decades. However, in ''Challenges to the Network: The Internet and Development,'' the ITU makes a clear distinction between distance learning - which encompasses all types of off-site education - and on-line learning. According to the report, ''If traditional distance learning was an event in which a student learned in isolation, mainly interacting with printed material, the Internet constitutes, instead, a virtual classroom in which intense interactivity and the sharing constitutes its essence.''
What distinguishes Internet-based education is the possibility for students and teachers in different parts of the world to interact in real time.
What do educators say about on-line learning?
The Open University (OU) in Britain has been providing degree-level distance learning since 1971. Today, it has more than 200,000 students and represents some 21 percent of all part-time higher education students in Britain. OU courses are available in Europe, Asia and, most recently, in the United States. ''We see the Internet as one part of our total package for delivering programs to students,'' says Diana Laurillard, pro-vice chancellor (learning technology and teaching), at the Open University. ''The best use of the Internet can be made in subjects where the content is constantly changing, such as the social sciences, technology and business.'' She adds: ''To be successful, Web-based learning needs to be dynamic and interactive in form.''
Michael Rowe