On-Site Distance Learning: A Multimedia Full-Scale Experiment in Denmark

It is important to remember that not all education takes place in classrooms with young students., Continuing, up-dating education is becoming increasingly important with developments in technology and the consequent changes in the work people do. This presents a different set of challenges and problems: the students are more heterogeneous; they may not have received formal education for some years; they are valuable workers who cannot be spared from their jobs for long periods of time, and so on. This chapter describes one approach to meeting such requirements. There was a need for continuing education of factory workers, and it was decided that some of the above-mentioned constraints dictated that the appropriate educational delivery strategy was on-site training at a distance. In such a situation, a multimedia approach seems particularly appropriate. This chapter reports on the implementation of such a system. The implementation was based on currently available technology, including databases, interactive video, computer conferencing, computer-aided instruction (CAI) and slow-scan television, but used them in such a way as to simulate the kind of learning environment which will be available in the future, when the technology has been developed further. Multimedia systems were used not just to facilitate human-machine interaction, but to facilitate learning through peer interaction — by participants who may not have been in the same building. The approach described here draws on the long practical and theoretical tradition in Denmark that treats education as a social, collaborative process. This chapter discusses how ‘virtual classrooms’ are found to facilitate new learning approaches: for example the teacher/trainer may become more of a consultant or director than a traditional teacher. Unlike many pilot multimedia schemes, this system was subjected to extensive practical testing and evaluation.