Videoconferencing-Based Distance Education.

21st September 2004

The industry's leading manufacturer Polycom and research analyst Wainhouse, have joined together to produce a very interesting white paper titled "Navigating the sea of research on video-conferencing based education" . This white paper summarizes a representative subset of recent research on interactive video conferencing for distance education.

The paper illustrates the fact that the past decade has witnessed a tremendous amount of distance education research, with a smaller but growing body of work specifically on video conferencing's use in education. This growth in research was brought about by the vast growth of national and international video conferencing networks - and an increasing number of practitioners interested in understanding the value of the technology. As the use of video conferencing has expanded, educators, researchers, technology providers, analysts and others have increasingly sought to answer questions such as:

* Is interactive video conferencing as effective as the traditional classroom for delivering instruction?
* What are the unique capabilities this technology brings to the table - for student interaction, for wider participation, and for collaboration among dispersed groups of students and educators?
* Do the benefits of videoconferencing justify the up-front cost of adopting the technology?
* How might videoconferencing be best used to take full advantage of the technology's capabilities?

The research to date yields a number of important conclusions:

* For delivering instruction, videoconferencing likely is neither more nor less effective than its counterpart, the "traditional" classroom.
* Interactivity is king - videoconferencing supports far greater interaction than is otherwise possible from many asynchronous technologies, and effective videoconferencing based instruction must be designed to take advantage of this capability.
* A number of other, related instructional strategies have been identified to maximize the success of a video conferencing-based learning situation.
* When used appropriately, video conferencing is a cost-effective way for educational institutions to deliver successful educational experiences to an expanded student population.

The white paper is designed to arm future researchers with the foundation they need to continue the exploration. This paper is also geared towards educators who might be considering the adoption of this technology. As some of the research explored in this paper amply demonstrates, when utilized intelligently, video conferencing technology can have a measurable and profound impact on the availability and quality of the education experience.

To view the white paper please click here. For more information about videoconferencing based distance learning, please contact us on +44 (0) 1628 484446.