ABSTRACT
SUMMARY Education and training can be delivered in three modes, any of which can be combined.
Face-to-face: tutor, students and learning materials are all in the same space at the same time.
Distance learning: the tutor is at a distance from the students. Normally study materials and guides are prepared beforehand and study time and place is variable.
Face-to-face at a distance: students and learning materials are together at the same time but the tutor communicates with them through electronic links. In addition, there may be several locations linked together simultaneously.
The third mode is the subject of this chapter, with a particular emphasis on the use of satellites to deliver education and training to a distributed audience using terrestrial links for a return path to the tutor. The addition of desktop video-conferencing also allows experts at a distance to contribute in vision to the content of the programme. Recent developments in compression technologies are reducing the costs of both terrestrial and satellite transmission. The final part of this chapter looks forward to the next five years of activity in what is now being called telematics — the combination of computing and communications technologies.
