State aid and technical assistance is driving all the state's schools into an interactive network that should expand opportunity. No longer are they simply out of luck. Each school will have a distance learning lab, with video cameras, monitors and other equipment. They can sit in the technology lab, watch instructors via satellite, and speak back and forth via a microphone. Distance learning provides many other high-tech options.
Students can take virtual field trips anywhere in the world, without leaving the school.
Teachers can develop their professional skills by taking online courses. Cochran predicts distance learning on dedicated interactive television networks will continue to grow, but the format's explosive growth will come after video and audio streaming on the Internet enters the mainstream. That will put the same capability on everybody's desktops, laptops, Palm Pilots, whatever people use. Such work certainly isn't limited to K-12 education. The state has organized New Jersey Virtual University, an online clearinghouse through which people can access more than 1,000 distance-learning programs.