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Bridging the distance learning curve

Widespread dissemination of knowledge has been the most important objective of distance education at IITs and IIMs, says Nivedan Prakash

Distance learning education has gained momentum with the advent of innovative technologies. The seamless integration of today’s technologies has literally brought the classroom to your home or workplace where high quality education can be imparted to a large number of participants across the country.

While distances are bridged faster than ever before, the challenge of providing a seamless learning experience over different geographical locations is now possible through technologies like video conferencing, video teleteaching, and Web casting, amongst others.

With thousands of colleges in India, attracting students is a challenge for newly opened institutes. To gain a competitive advantage, a number of institutes are opting for emerging technologies. It’s not just the start-ups which are adopting IT. Even institutions like IITs and IIMs are keen to embrace technology for providing better education and to efficiently manage their vast infrastructure.

Besides, there are companies like Hughes Net Global Education and Persistent Systems that have entered into partnerships with premier institutions like the IITs and IIMs to impart distance education to students across the country. Hughes Net Global Education is the broadband satellite based education and training service for consumers, small businesses and enterprise markets and it has tied up with the premier institutes like IIM Kozhikode, IIM Calcutta, IIM Bangalore, and IIT Delhi, amongst others.

Persistent Systems has a tie-up with IIT Bombay to offer a Post-Graduate Distance Engineering Education Programs (DEEP) in IT and Management. It offers a distance education program for its employees and other external people who are interested in pursuing these courses. The aim of the DEEP is to provide high quality education to a large number of participants across the country, generating expert IT professionals to meet the requirement of the Indian industry, thereby simulating a classroom environment for students.

Tahir Wase, Senior Executive-Channel Sales, Hughes Communication, said, “Hughes Net Global Education provides the top institutions in the country and abroad the mode of delivering quality education across the country, breaking geographic barriers; the country is the classroom.”

“Distance education at IIT Bombay involves the transmission of its regular courses to other educational institutions. Towards this end, we have used paid and free satellite services, learning management system, and also videoconferencing and Webcast modes,” said Prof Kannan M Moudgalya, Center for Distance Engineering Education Programme, IIT Bombay.

IITs and IIMs have opened their doors to people who are keen on learning through such innovative DEEP programs where a larger audience can avail their courses. Both these institutions are keen on pushing their education programs through technology for making it available to people staying in far away places through the ‘earn while you learn’ concept.

Distance learning scenario

The distance learning methodology is a powerful system that allows large numbers of geographically dispersed participants to have a highly interactive, one- to-one exchange with a central instructor. This system incorporates live video, audio and data, all using the most convenient of all user interfaces—the PC, which is connected over a local area network to a satellite transceiver that in turn connects to the central studio. The instructor is always visible to the students. Interactions with the professor are spontaneous and as natural as in a regular classroom.

Hughes Net Global Education’s Interactive Onsite learning (IOL) platform seeks to define the next generation of education i.e. Real-Time Interactive Education. It enables a student to have interactive sessions with other students and instructors all over the country, using video, voice and data.

Wase added, “For students, there are numerous benefits—there are savings in terms of both cost and time, there is no loss of productivity, the same instructor trains students in their respective locations, at the same time. Hughes Net Global education has redefined the concept of classroom education improving its reach and enhancing collaborative group learning.”

This interaction is arranged ‘live’ through the use of software that works as follows: When participants at a remote center wish to ask questions, the local course coordinator communicates the desire to the instructor by pushing a button. (This is the digital equivalent of a hand going up in a real classroom). The local course coordinator also selects one of the participants (when more than one participant has a question) to ask a question if the instructor decides to take the question from that remote center. This might happen at a number of locations simultaneously. The instructor sees the incoming requests in a graphical form on a PC-console and grants the floor to the remote center of his choice. The instructor might opt to continue with the lecture for some time before allowing a question. When the instructor decides to take a question, the lecture transmission is interrupted and the floor is given to the remote site.

At this point in time, all remote locations see the participant and hear the question followed by the instructor answering the question live in the studio. This might be an iterative process where the instructor may select more questions to be answered. When the instructor wishes to move on, he indicates so on the console and the transmission of the pre-taped lecture continues. At all times, the visual display on the instructor’s PC-console reflects the state of pending questions.

Shivakumar Sundaram, Senior Manager-Training, Persistent Systems, said, “Typically, lectures are live and delivered from KReSIT at IIT-Bombay. Interaction may be initiated either by the instructor or by any remote center like Persistent Systems. The instructor interrupts his lecture to ask the participants a question or a participant in remote center asks a question which is then answered by the instructor.”

“DEEP thus simulates an interactive classroom environment for participants, to impart high quality education in an effective manner to a wider audience within and outside the IIT,” added Sundaram.

Technologies in use

The technology that is most widely used in distance learning is video conferencing, which facilitates distance or distributed learning in a big way by making seamless interaction possible between the end users. Video conferencing is the preferred mode of communication between classrooms across schools and universities. Interviews of students, teacher trainings, and any other exchange of ideas can easily take place through the medium of video conferencing.

The DEEP courses use satellite technology to relay their classes to participants. The course lectures are transmitted through the EDUSAT satellite which is managed by ISRO. The lectures at Persistent Systems are live video broadcast sessions and not just pre-recorded sessions making it more interactive and interesting.

“We have partnerships with EDUSAT, ISRO who are our principle technology provider. We don’t have any other kind of partnerships because we use a standard solution and have avoided proprietary solutions. Technologies like video conferencing and Web casting allow the students to see the teacher live. Our distance education mode is such that the students can interact with teachers live. We use all of these technologies in imparting distance education,” added Moudgalya.

Hughes Net Global Education use the DiRECWAY Global Education satellite broadband infrastructure to deliver real-time, synchronous, live education to all the participating students. The interaction is live and uses high quality video, audio, and data. “The students will need to come to DiRECWAY Global Education learning centers at scheduled times. As on date there are 50 classrooms across 50 cities for you to be able to attend classes from. You can visit any center near you to get your prospectus as well as a first hand feel of the technology,” added Wase.

The other technology in use is the learning management system (LMS) that facilitates live interaction. The LMS allows the instructor to post the instructional material consisting of slides, notes, hand written material, as well as related documents. In addition, one may post the assignments, exam question papers as well as their solutions.

The instructor can create different threads of discussion and let all students participate in it. Some of the possible threads are, doubts on lectures, doubts on a specific assignment and project related questions. It is possible for a student to answer another’s question. This could be challenged or improved by another student. The Teaching Assistants (TAs) could also post some answers. When the discussion goes in the wrong direction, the teacher may interrupt and guide it back on track. It is possible to use the LMS in an equitable way for all students, irrespective of where they are.

Other technologies

A lot is being talked about the virtual classroom these days. The barrier of time and distance has been overcome by virtual classrooms and in a way it has helped the teaching process and improved the students’ learning curve.

Moudgalya explained, “I think the kind of methodology we have makes the entire country a classroom. It is almost like the borders have gone. It has helped the teaching process by helping the students go through video on demand and also to be able to participate in the discussion forum. The students can get 90% of the value what IIT students get out of these processes.”

Then there is Presentation Server that uses proprietary hardware and software to provide the instructor and the administrators with all the tools needed for learning, permitting transmission of presentation slides, video, interactive questions, quizzes, voice and e-mail interaction. All this happens in a live environment where the student and teacher can have full-fledged real-time interactivity. All results coming from questions or answers and quizzes are instantaneously compiled to give the students and the teacher real-time feedback on performance. The Presentation Server also has class management tools that allow the teacher to control the class and the interaction.

Mobile learning is the other very interesting concept that is coming up and supposedly an emerging technology in distance learning. It is a kind of learning opportunity offered by portable technologies like mobile, PDAs, laptop, etc. It is more of portable learning where a person doesn’t need to be virtually attending a particular lecture or session, but can download it on to his/her laptop, PDA and access it while traveling. The focus of this learning is to facilitate any learner who is mobile or on move.

Technology’s role in offering learning at a distance cannot be underestimated and it will grow as time goes by.

nivedan.prakash@expressindia.com