Broadband Streaming for More Effective Teaching

New innovations in technology are motivating new opportunities for learning and teaching within the global marketplace. No longer are teachers and students bound to classrooms or campuses, the Internet is opening doors and breaking down barriers for distance learning like never before. Specialized private instruction such as piano or other instrumental lessons, language, art, and a myriad of others are experiencing a boom of online success. Broadband solution providers, flexing the muscles of their research and development teams, are arriving at new and exciting ways for teachers to teach and students to learn, revolutionizing educative techniques and opportunities in the process.

One-on-one learning has been a mainstay in specialized education since its inception. Having an instructor available who can demonstrate and perform with accuracy the desired skill or talent is an invaluable tool for imitation, practice, and learning. Take a guitar teacher, for example; book learning can only achieve so much for the beginning player. Being able to see and hear a professional instructor, observing proper fingering and technique, can assist the student in achieving his or her goals much quicker than ever before. The instructional guitarist can upload video to his or her site, allowing student viewing, broadcast live sessions via live camera feeds, and interact with students via real-time connections over broadband. These advanced abilities can help a teacher tailor each lesson to each particular student, even if miles separate student from teacher. A student would then be able to view these live sessions again and again, by simply accessing them on their computer’s hard drive or streaming them from their teacher’s site in the future. With this ability to watch lessons repeatedly, the online teaching situation virtually surpasses face-to-face, private learning in many ways. Group lessons are also advantageous in many situations. Imagine an international, far-reaching improvisational acting seminar, with multiple students, playing off each other via personal webcams, though separated by oceans and thousands of miles. With technology provided by companies like Whiteblox, this is an achievable reality, with added features allowing for software providing translation or transcription ability, breaking down language barriers as well.

Broadband media video streaming and live camera technology are only in their infant stages of development. As innovative developers like Whiteblox continue to provide excellent tools, while continually developing and testing new ones, the education sector, both private and public, will be more willing to adapt and evolve methods and practicum to better suit their technology-savvy student bodies.

About the Author: Gregory Demetriades is Chief Executive Officer of Whiteblox, a leading provider of integrated broadband video solutions.