Teaching the curriculum by distance education to these students usually involves contact with their teachers by telephone or HF radio once a week with students posting their written work for marking and comments. Often the time for the round journey of posting in, marking and posting back can take between 2-4 weeks.
Teachers make face to face visits to their students only once or twice a year.
Research into desktop video conferencing in 1994 indicated it could be used successfully to improve the quality of interaction between students and teachers and to improve the quality of learning concepts and processes difficult to teach in the non-visual mode of distance education. Desktop video conferencing incorporates videophone technology on a computer. One student was studying secondary subjects and the other a combination of primary and secondary. The ShareVision computer remained with each student for a period of at least one semester. Students were taught during 1995 from teachers at the Marden Campus and in 1996 by teachers at Port Augusta School of the Air Campus.