Bandwidth
by Donald Clark
What difference does it make whether the training is offline or online? The answer -- a lot. Offline courses do not suffer from bandwidth limitations. They are able to use the full multimedia repertoire, including animation, sound, and video. However, on the internet, multimedia is a big disappointment, even when using the latest streaming technology. This is because it requires more bandwidth to deliver the multimedia than what is currently available.
Online courses, however, can be delivered anywhere in the world where the Internet is available and to any computer on an organization's intranet. As soon as it's finished, the course is available. Updates are instant and inexpensive. Not so with such materials as CD-ROMs and paper-base courseware. And where as CBT tends to be stand-alone, WBT can incorporate interaction with other humans - tutors, subject matter experts, and fellow learners. This is where Internet tools such as email, discussion forums, and chat rooms prove invaluable.
Videoconferencing
The videoconferencing market has had steady but unspectacular growth over the past decade. One industry insider estimates the entire videoconferencing market to be about $2 billion annually (The Year of Desktop Videoconferencing?). Again the problem is bandwidth. Videoconferencing would be a big plus for e-learning programs as it would bring discussion activities, which is a major advantage of classrooms, to the learner; instead of the learner having to go to the classroom.
Unlimited Bandwidth
The Gilder Paradigm (Wired, 4.12 - Dec 1996) reports that in the future, if the law of thrift in the current paradigm is waste watts and transistors, the law of thrift in the new paradigm will be waste bandwidth and save watts. That is, if bandwidth is free, you get a completely different computer architecture and information economy. While other futurist simply tell about the future, George Gilder (Wired 4.03 - Mar 1996) gives us the nuts and bolts about the future.
Cheap, unlimited bandwidth is some time away from becoming a reality, however, when it does arrive, it will give an extremely big boost to e-learning. Much of the e-learning programs developed today are text-based adaptations due to the extra bandwidth required to carry multimedia programs. Learners do not enjoy looking at an hourglass while waiting for downloads of huge video and audio clips.
Streaming
The term "multimedia on the Web" evokes expectations of Web-based presentations with sound and video. As discussed above, there are significant barriers in creating audio/video course content. However, streaming audio alone -- sound without video -- is a Web-based technology that is available today, it is easy to learn, inexpensive to produce, and requires low bandwidth so it available to off-site learners (The Educational Applications of Streaming Audio: Accessible, Do-It-Yourself Multimedia).
Streaming is a technology that continuously sends the file, which have already been digitized, to the user's computer while the user is listening or watching. Then, when the stream has ended, no data is left behind on the user's machine. This differs from downloading, which requires that files be sent to the user's PC in their entirety before they can be played. Also, when a file is downloaded, the file remains on the user's machine until it is deleted.
There is also streaming video, however, it can still be slow and the picture that comes to your computer screen is quite tiny. Two technologies in use today are RealMedia the technology that holds the lion's share of the streaming media market, and QuickTime, Apple's streaming media product.
Why is this seemingly less-than-perfect technology good for training? Its availability. Unlike a video or teleconference, the the learner chooses the time, not the trainer. This is critical when you have a widely dispersed group or a number of remote locations.
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