The HyperClass: education in a broadband Internet environment

The 1980s saw the advent of the PC in education, the 1990s saw the coming of narrow band Internet to education, the first decade of the new Millennium seems set to see the spread of broadband Internet in education. What will it mean for education when students and teachers can access Pentium 4 computers with 214 meg bandwidth from wherever they are? The author with Lalita Rajasingham and Nobuyoshi Terashima in collaboration with colleagues around the world, have been studying this question. In particular they have been looking at the application on the Internet of a technology called HyperReality. The idea of the technology is that it provides a space where physical reality and virtual reality and human intelligence and artificial intelligence can interact in a manner that becomes increasingly seamless. The space could be a class-hence the idea of a HyperClass. The paper looks at the experimental work already carried out between Japan and New Zealand to develop such a system. It addresses the implications for education of real students, teachers and objects freely interacting with virtual students, teachers and objects and with artificial intelligence in a class. Finally it draws on the work of Tiffin and Rajasingham in designing a global virtual university to look at the possibilities for developing HyperUniversities, HyperColleges and HyperSchools which would allow the intersection of global and local dimensions in education.