|
Adding
courses delivered via cable TV or other electronic means to
a school's offerings can provide economies of scale. A conventional
course, needing a teacher and a classroom, incurs start-up
costs each time it's taught. It also is limited in size. A
distance course, once developed and produced, can be distributed
at minimal cost to hundreds of thousands of students.
If
an innovative solution incorporates a fairly non-traditional
concept, often it is easier to work with a partner who already
is comfortable with the non-traditional concept. For example,
a group of Jones companies combined non-traditional delivery
processes (cable television, satellites, computers, and the
Internet) with non-traditional teaching methods using highly
adaptable and affordable software applied over the Internet.
The
cable TV network called Knowledge
TV was intended to create excitement about education
and motivate viewers to view special Internet sites
on their computers or call an 800 number to further their
inquiry on how to pursue their educational interests.
These special Web sites and the toll-free phone number
opened the electronic gateway for TV viewers to become
students in cyberschools or cybercampuses.
In
the late 1990s, all of the college-level course content was
migrated to the company's Web sites, though many of the video
courses remained available for order on VHS tape.
Jones International University is a completely Internet-based
higher education institution launched in the mid-1990s. In
spring 1999, it became the first fully accredited cyber university.
The Jones Standard, Jones Knowledge's proprietary education
software, provided Web-based tools and overall administrative
support to other for-credit higher education institutions.
Thanks
to cooperation among the staff members of all enterprises
involved, this is done in a manner that builds interest
and excitement about the benefits of education.
For
distance education, television arguably has been the transforming
technology of the 20th century. The opening of the ultra
high frequency spectrum in the 1960s and 1970s--which
brought the explosive growth of non-commercial television
stations -- plus the advent of cable TV, brought education
programming home, so to speak.
The Internet, through
the Web, has become the technology of choice in developed
nations for education delivery. Increasingly as we move
into the 21st century, the Web will integrate video streaming
with IP solutions for the delivery of full-motion content
to computers worldwide.
More
about the:
NEED | SOLUTION
| SPECIFICS | FUTURE
|
