Education and eLearning
Introduction
Collaboration is at the heart of modern education with new technology bringing together students from across the globe to learn irrespective of location. New digital techniques such as high definition videoconferencing open up completely new ways for university and research students to learn together in virtual classrooms. This not only breaks down barriers between different countries and cultures but enables the latest knowledge to be shared easily across multiple related disciplines, making it accessible to the global education community, wherever students are located. Lectures and symposia can be broadcast in real-time with two way communication enabling interaction between students and teachers around the world.
Enabling knowledge transfer
The spread of technology goes far beyond video conferencing. Students can interact in virtual learning environments across the globe, working together on assignments using web-based tools and broadening their skills without leaving their home university. They can share materials, find information and question eminent specialists wherever they are located. This not only helps knowledge transfer but enables students from the developing world to access resources, collaborate and learn.
The spread of technology goes far beyond video conferencing. Students can interact in virtual learning environments across the globe, working together on assignments using web-based tools and broadening their skills without leaving their home university. They can share materials, find information and question eminent specialists wherever they are located. This not only helps knowledge transfer but enables students from the developing world to access resources, collaborate and learn.
The impact of research and education networks
Sharing and collaborating in real-time, using technology such as high definition video conferencing and collaborative web-based learning environments requires high bandwidth. Consequently high capacity research and education networks, such as GÉANT, linked together across the world, are central to education as video and audio streams are simply too large to be cost-effectively transmitted across the commercial internet.
Education and elearning is truly global, as demonstrated by the ShanghAI lectures, which in 2011 brought together Artificial Intelligence (AI) students and researchers from 25 countries and 16 universities to create a worldwide community around lectures and symposia delivered from eight locations in Europe, China, Japan and North America.
When delivering interactive, two way lectures, teachers and students need to be able to work together in real-time, undisturbed by delays or downtime. New ways of collaborating, such as working together as virtual teams, using web-based tools to complete exercises require high performance networks to ensure seamless interaction. Only research and education networks can provide these guaranteed, high capacity connections that let students around the world work together as if they were in the same space.
Click here for more details and case studies on some of the leading global projects that GÉANT is involved with:
ICT-LEAP
