University of Nebraska - Lincoln University of Nebraska - Lincoln

DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Historical Materials from University of

Nebraska-Lincoln Extension

Extension

1997

DBS-Based Education and the Role of the Teacher DBS-Based Education and the Role of the Teacher

James Emal

University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Emal, James; Ruiz, Antonio; and Masullo, Miriam J., "DBS-Based Education and the Role of the Teacher"

(1997).

Historical Materials from University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension

. 1482.

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/extensionhist/1482

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Extension at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska -

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1

Virtual Learning Environments and the Role of the Teacher

Milton Keynes, UK

This paper describes how a broadcast education infrastructure can be used to access a digital

There are many questions regarding the quality and value of what is learned from television, but

there is no question that television is a widespread, visual, virtual, and powerful learning

environment. In the Middle East, for example the number of households that have TVs was

estimated in a recent survey to be 50 million. Doordarshan, which means television in Hindi,

the Indian Market Research Bureau. The cable explosion that began only five years ago is

acclimating subscribers in leaps of million, in a nation of 920 million people. The success of

television in developing countries shows an acceptance rate similar to what has been

experienced in North America. People everywhere accept, like, and enjoy television.

the effectiveness of any educational environment is limited by the role that the teacher can play

in it. Until now, the teacher has played a very insignificant, if any, role in the use of television as

an educational tool. Certainly the teacher has no explicit control over television broadcasts,

possibly no input at all.

Taking advantage of new opportunities offered by Digital Broadcast Satellite (DBS) solutions, a

new global education infrastructure can involve the teacher much more and in critical roles. A

new broadcast system (for equity access) coupled with a complementary information

powerful and efficient, universal and global educational force, that can be deployed at moderate

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vehicle for equitable distribution of educational resources and opportunities, in fact, a more

recent but equally profound concern, is that technology can have a very differential effect on

educational opportunity: the new class of have and have-not set of issues. Public policy

recommendations have emerged along side the new waves of technologies as a requirement for

equity access [2]. One problem is that solutions that can satisfy the goals of public policy for

equitable distribution of educational resources have not been forthcoming. It is good to demand

connectivity, but connectivity, as currently advocated, will always tend to be differential. Even if

the connectivity problem is resolved, the problem of actually learning over a network must still be

conquered. That problem, we believe, is not in the educational resources or the delivery

Given the various, feasible technology-based opportunities for distribution of content, and for the

building of education infrastructure, how can a least common denominator be found to exploit all

of them in a complementary fashion? This would certainly reduce teacher training, and improve

on equity access for students. The blackboard has been such a common tool for all teachers,

over all time, anywhere in the world. Can a technology tool become as pervasive, indispensable,

and as universally intuitive to use: a tool of the trade? The television, as a teacher tool not a

in the digital form, and for the use of educational multimedia:

 stand-alone  the Internet  digital library

The Internet approach, the hallmark of networking, while supportive of many different

educational uses (e.g., communications, collaboration, and content movement) is best

exemplified by the World Wide Web (WWW or Web) when it comes to educational uses. A Web

page can easily compete with any CD-ROM in functionality. Web pages support interactivity,

hyperlinking , and rich media types. The Internet, however, limits the value of the Web because

it is unable to deliver, at any level of classroom practicality, rich media, for example, video,

complex graphics, animation, simulations, and virtual worlds. Interactivity and hyperlinking, like

rich media types, are also severely limited by the slow bandwidth of the Internet. It is not the

form and function of the Web, but Internet delivery of Web pages that is limiting.

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connectivity, but also insufficiency of enabled content.

Digital library, on the other hand, in its purest form, addresses the need to more effectively

harness content. The atoms to bits metaphor [4] captures the essence of this "new", or newly

redefined approach. By representing (capturing or encoding) content in digital form we create

Research and commercial initiatives in digital library integrate with both the Internet and a suite

of technology hardware and software tools. Yet, the definition of digital library is still subject to

content. Another way to define a digital library, as a virtual library, a library without walls, adds

potential to the value of the approach for equity access. Deployment, whether local or regional,

enhanced teacher participation in the application of the technologies. How digital library

enhances the role of the teacher is a question related to the use of content.

Because of all the many available options (within the established approaches) for teaching and

learning with technology, a great deal of emphasis is being placed on teacher training. Perhaps

not an added burden, and should require minimum training. And, facilitating that task should also

enhance, rather than diminish, the role of the teacher.

Secondly, while content application is part of an accepted role for a teacher, curriculum design is

not. Most teachers are not curriculum design theorists, anymore than they are multimedia

programmers. Typically teachers follow a curriculum, but they do not design it. Equally, teachers

use content but, for the most part, do not create it. Teachers are not engaged in the design and

and communications need not redefine, only support.

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Most technology-based education carried out today gravitates around CD-ROMs, the Web, and

that have been raised and explored [5] relating to the "big problems" that would be addressed by

these solutions are:

 improved learning  accessibility  cost

The reality is that these technology driven solutions still do not provide equal access to

A new content infrastructure, based on the digital library approach, to capitalize on the broadcast

medium is possible. Such a solution has been proposed to address problems of educational

quality and equity, for large regions of the world [8], in particular for geographically remote and

underprivileged regions. It is possible to provide access to specially prepared or enabled content

with a device as simple as a digital settop box, thus in the absence of a PC, and with interactivity

even in the absence of a return channel.

The global reach of the solution makes it suitable for the home, the school, and the library for

delivery over settop boxes or PCs. Since the solution is regionally oriented, because of the

use of content or more precisely the usage parameters: how specific content is grouped together

and how it is used.

1. A network to which most people attach via telephone modems

2. A set of de-facto standards (HTTP, HTML, TCP/IP, browsers, etc.)

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 A teacher or tutor that manages the process

 A set of lectures, drill and practice, homework, hands-on and other activities

 A set of evaluation practices that measure if knowledge has been obtained

Overwhelmingly, we keep coming back to the basics:

 curriculum/content

 teacher/facilitator

Several waves of technologies have been used to facilitate education. The mainframe was too

expensive to place in every school, but was certainly used effectively for the administrative

needs of the education infrastructure. We have never stopped putting PCs in the classroom,

even though it has not been determined if and by how much these tools improve education.

educational process. Teacher training is the biggest concern and most advocated way to

EduPort [9] was designed to use a digital library and to be compatible with the broadcast

medium, combining all the elements of the process, in a more accessible, more cost effective

solution. With a digital library as a tool, content can be made available already infused with

knowledge about the content itself, ways to use it, forms of assessing for new gained

knowledge, examples of how to deploy it, ways to move on, and learning possibilities to move on

to, all the strands of learning. What is learned from the educational process can then be

reflected back in the library, as new content, linked to the process itself. A connection between

process and material can then be made in a sustained, systematic fashion. Aggregation of

content, information, and knowledge can be coordinated, and then shared broadly via an

applicable networked infrastructure. Enabling this resource and making it universal (all forms of

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network, or can be deployed stand-alone in a variety of configurations for all access

environments and cost models; and, it can also be simpler to use.

What good is developing the most compelling, media rich and fully interactive CD-ROM if the

vast majority of students in the world will not be able to use it? What is the purpose of tuning

down the experience so that it can be networked over the Internet, if the vast majority of

students around the world are not connected to it? That realization has led to cries by

governments to wire all the schools. The Internet will continue to evolve providing broader

Digital Broadcast Satellite (DBS), cable and wireless are all networks that can enable broadcast

applications and services. The nature of the medium and the characteristics associated with the

client player or receiving devices (settop box and remote control) do not require explicit control

by the teacher, but do involve guidance relating to the selection of materials. That is, available

materials are scheduled as requested by the teacher for a given timespan during which the

materials are available. These timespans can correspond to curriculum plans, courses, or

educational goals and over a general time and place: specific requirements. A digital library that

accommodates these kinds of requests must be engineered for that purpose.

which can be readily obtained as a consumer items for prices under $400.

Broadcast (DVB) and recent deployments of DBS such as DirecTV(TM), DirectPC(TM), and

Echostar/Dish Network. These technologies have created ready access to the services and

applications of broadcasting. For example, the investment required by a school (in the

physically accessible to students anywhere, even from their homes.

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leverages the existence of those technologies, and the existing expertise to use it.

3. A PC or other Gateway/Server

These options correspond, and are the best combination of the two successful models for

information delivery, DBS as in DirecTV (TM), and the Internet as in today's low-bandwidth

point-to-point connectivity. The socioeconomic implications of combining these models in a

DBS settop boxes are being used today to receive and decode MPEG2 video and audio content.

Prepared content for these settop boxes can be carousels of MPEG I-frames, where each page

of information is placed together with its related navigational hyperlinks, and hot-keys, that is, it

can be interactive. Interactivity without a return channel is achieved by the design of the

carousel, which is cycling (i.e., being repeated) in a very short interval, usually measured in

seconds, and by a compatible organization model to maximize the carousel design. The latency

(response time) is predictable in terms of average and maximum for going from the current page

to the selected page via one of the hot-keys, and that is the number of the page in the

hyperlinks.

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by an expert who can make "best decisions", since in the broadcast medium, the choices apply

to large groups.

Since the solution can be deployed as a complement to the Internet, using the Internet as return

channel where possible, selections can be made by interacting with the digital library. It would be

plans or curriculum blocks, as described in EduPort [10], that can be delivered as requests on a

playlist. The broadcast would follow the playlist to schedule access and/or download of content.

communications would still allow a teacher to have input into the process. If desirable those

The solution is comprised of four elements as follows:

1. A content creation and enablement complex

2. A broadcast center

3. A broadcast network

4. A set of client receivers

This is the most vital and possibly most misunderstood element of the solution, because less

and indexing of content, an aspect of the technology solution that teachers are already trained to

Curriculum design theory, and curriculum modeling can play an important role in content

be used to guide the selection of content, to create lesson plans or curriculum blocks [11].

Certainly the WWW home page format can be used as the content and information exchange

standard that it has become; but the Web a generic tool only enables, and does not provide an