December 13, 1994	


				A Brief Tour
		Along the Communications Superhighway


ISDN Applications for Education


Interactive Telelearning: involving digital interactive telelearning 
between distant schools or libraries.  Possible uses include:

	> Collaborative Learning - allows teachers and students at distant 
	locations to work together on a common project.  For example, 
	urban and rural schools could exchange information about the 
	different ways of life and attitudes in their respective areas.  
	Students also can share documents and collaborate on creating and 
	editing reports and research papers.

	> Resource Sharing - allows master teachers to conduct classes for 
	students at remote sites where subject matter expertise is lacking.  
	With interactive telelearning, a qualified educator could provide 
	instruction to the remote location at the same time the class was 
	being delivered in person at the originating site.

	> Customized Instruction - allows tailoring of information and 
	knowledge to individuals or small groups.  For example, students 
	doing research on earthquakes could use interactive telelearning 
	to connect with a scientist at a research lab, they could conduct 
	an interview and review maps and graphics over the same video call.


Telecomputing: involving digital data connections between schools and 
libraries or to remote databases.  Possible uses include:

	> Access to educational resources virtually anywhere in the world 
	without leaving the classroom or library.  This includes access 
	to the Internet, connecting millions of users around the world to 
	education and research databases.

	> Access to continually updated information in an age when textbooks 
	are outdated before they even get printed.

	> Collaborative learning and personal "networking" among users from 
	diverse backgrounds, through forums such as the worldwide 
	electronic mail system of the Internet or through on-line 
	discussion groups.

	> Computer skill development enhances student's capability in a 
	business environment.


ISDN Background

The telecommunications network, originally designed strictly for 
conversation, is widely used today for data and video communication as 
well.

Integrated Services Digital Network, or more commonly, ISDN, weaves 
together the conversation, data and video that people and machines 
exchange.  ISDN is bringing together our latest and best technologies 
to reshape telecommunications.

Like the gradual introduction of digital compact discs as a replacement 
for analog phonograph records, an all-digital telecommunications network 
offers customers new capabilities above an analog system.

ISDN accomplishes this by dividing a common telephone line into three 
digital channels.  As a result, all forms of digitized information (voice, 
data, facsimile, image and video) can be combined and transmitted 
simultaneously.  ISDN users select a primary long-distance company with 
switched digital services to complete long distance calls.


The promise for greater information productivity with ISDN is enormous.  
Some examples include:

	> Integrated voice and data communication:  ISDN eliminates the 
	need for separate lines for telephone, data and video 
	transmissions.  One line--the one that now serves your home, 
	school or office--handles it all.

	> Sophisticated, computer-based telephone service:  ISDN allows 
	the common telephone line to be used as a powerful programming 
	tool that can enable special features, such as a shared screen 
	that both parties in a call can draw on or edit while they talk, 
	access to a computer database during a call, or interactive 
	telelearning.

	> Data networking:  ISDN, which is standardized throughout the 
	world, overcomes many of the obstacles to data communications 
	that exist among different computer systems and terminals.  In 
	addition, it solves the problem of limited access ports to host 
	computers and the expense of using expensive dedicated lines for 
	data transmission.  An ordinary personal computer equipped with 
	an ISDN line is capable of virtually unlimited access to 
	computer-based resources anywhere in the network.