Compressed Video for the Global Village

Abstract

Marshall McLuhan (1964) introduced the concept of the global village that helped us see what was happening with worldwide, inexpensive communication through technology. However, at the time we did not envision that it would result during our lifetimes with our students being able to see and talk with students across the ocean and around the globe. From Nebraska’s statewide video network (Robinson, 2004) to the Florida Virtual School (Johnston, 2000), the use of technology to connect students at distant locations with a central site has become almost commonplace. When students find that a course they need to take is not available at their school site, they can electronically register to complete that course online with students from many other locations—all connected together. If a teacher is presenting a lesson on exotic animals, but lacks in-depth expertise in that topic, he or she can go online and bring in an expert from one of the several online zoos or connect the students to a Webcam set up in the wild where the animals can be viewed in real time around the world. To get even more structured interactions with students in other parts of the nation or the world, and to have high-quality picture and voice exchanges, compressed video systems connected via broad bandwidth ISDN phone lines are being used.