| The Challenge:
Delivering High Quality Distance Education at a Lower Cost
It all began with the Masters Graduate Program in Acoustics. The
distance education courses for this program were originally distributed
in full video via satellite, employing a phone bridge for questions
and answers between students and the instructor. This satellite
technology was very expensive. Satellite delivery was replaced with
PictureTel, using telephone lines for distribution, but the quality
was compromised.
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The Solution: Web Presenter
Duane Champion, Director of Computer Technology and Assistant Chief
Engineer, Penn State Public Broadcasting, spent a year working with
faculty in the Acoustics department and with staff at Penn State
Public Broadcasting to develop Web Presenter, an integrated, multimedia
package using the latest technology.
With
Web Presenter, faculty can include live audio, video, and animated
graphics, annotate presentations, capture screens, archive material,
and include information from PowerPoint, Word, MatLab, and Web browsers.
Courses can now be delivered to individual students, with one-to-one
faculty-to-student interaction, rather than requiring a large group
of students to attend the course on the same schedule.
Students
need only a PC and an Internet connection to attend the course.
Using the Internet rather than satellite and PictureTel significantly
reduces the cost of delivering a program. CDs and a Web board are
used for student download rather than videotape and the postal system.
In
Duane Champion’s words, Web Presenter course delivery is the
“closest thing to actually being live in the classroom for
the student that we have today.”
For
more information about Web Presenter, contact Duane Champion at
814-863-2829 or drc3@psu.edu.
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