An International Distance Learning System Based on the Internet and General Purpose Technology

In this study, we constructed a distance education system for foreign graduate students who remotely take lessons, teach themselves and have a bidirectional communication with teachers or instructors. The system was configured with the necessary modules for the student's learning, such as giving live type lectures, presenting the on-demand type learning contents and managing the learning processes by using the general purpose technology, such as the Internet, recent data-streaming technology, and the general purpose hardware and software. The system has the function of remote operation of the video camera set in the classroom by the remote learners. With this function, the remote learner can not only recognize the characters and figures written on the blackboard, but also experience more active lessons with less boredom. In this system, It is possible to provide the bidirectional communications between all of the learners and instructors during the live type lecture. The practices of giving the regular graduate school courses of Fukuoka Institute of Technology to the foreign graduate students in China were carried out.