A wireless rural education and learning system based on disk oriented MPEG streaming multimedia

The Internet is enabling us to address some educational challenges, bringing learning to students instead of bringing students to learning. It is allowing for the creation of learning communities that defy the constraints of time and distance as it provides access to knowledge that was once difficult to obtain. This is true in the classroom, on the college campus, and in the corporate training rooms. We describe the design of a rural education and learning system in a wireless multimedia environment which runs on a cost-effective computer system. The education system may be classified as a multiple clients and a single server system where each client runs in a class-room where students are free to select the subject of their choice. The client is also facilitated with VCR operations and guaranteed data delivery by using the MNSP (multimedia network service platform) at the server and at the clients end. The system has been implemented in 5,10, 20 classroom environments with 50 different subjects teaching materials. It has been observed that the response to each of the user's requirements, like subject material requirement retrieval and VCR operation, etc., are quite good. We have also made a field trial in a five-classroom school in a rural area, which has been quite encouragin