Distance Education Using Linux and the MBone One of the most
promising applications of the Internet is distance education.
The most significant advantage of Internet connectivity over
previous communication paradigms for distance education is that
a high degree of interaction among teachers and learners is
possible. Education is a highly interactive process. If it
weren't, schools wouldn't be needed—textbooks alone would be
sufficient. The fact that the Internet protocols support two-way
communication and virtually unlimited possibilities for
integrated multimedia (given sufficient bandwidth and quality of
service) presents unprecedented opportunities for extending the
reach of education beyond the traditional classroom. Most
applications of Internet technology to distance education have
been web-based courses. In a web-based course, the course
content is developed as modules in HTML, and interaction takes
place asynchronously through discussion boards or plain old
e-mail. Some web-based courses also support