Integration of Multimedia and Satellite Technologies for Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This paper presents a study on integration of multimedia and satellite technologies for education. We design an experiment with use of both technologies on the Internet and WWW platform to provide a hybrid information delivery system for teaching and learning. The experiment, one of Pennsylvania Link-to-Learn technology testbeds, is to assimilate, deploy, and evaluate a hybrid information deliver system that integrates broadband capabilities of direct broadcast satellite (DBS) and the peer to peer attributes of Internet technologies using satellites. The hybrid system was designed to integrate networked broadcast, digital, interactive and multimedia technologies for delivery of media rich content to targeted users. With the use of large screen multimedia PC/TV convergent systems, multimedia-based teaching materials can be comfortably viewed by all students in the classroom and can be easily manipulated by the teacher via wireless controls. This research demonstrated the use of these technologies in selected K-12 classrooms and community agencies in the Lehigh valley of eastern Pennsylvania, USA.