THIS FALL International students or students studying at home or at small businesses who do not have access to a satellite link will be able to tap into Lehigh University s distance education courses right on their computers this coming year as Lehigh becomes one of the first universities in the nation to offer streaming video classes on the World Wide Web. Streaming is the simultaneous transmission of audio, visuals and graphics to provide students with a classroom environment on a computer screen.
Students see and hear the professor on the left one-third of the screen.
On the remainder of the screen, students see the graphics, equations and words that the professor is writing on a chalkboard, electronic whiteboard or overhead projector. This information can be downloaded by students using the Web and by those watching via satellite. James Brown, director of distance education at Lehigh, says only a handful of universities, including Cornell and Stanford, are using streaming. One advantage of streaming is that we don t have to break a course down for the Web, says Brown. We can use the same video for satellite transmission that we use for the Web.