It's a small world ...

The 20 minute link-up took place during an exchange visit between. Westcliff County Primary Whitby, Yorkshire, and Richmond School, in Fremantle, Western Australia - arranged to coincide with the arrival in Whitby port of a replica of Captain Cook's ship Endeavour which had set sail from Fremantle five months earlier. The contrast between the 18th and 20th centuries is a dramatic illustration of how information technology has shrunk the globe.

A key part of communications within multinational companies, desktop video-conferencing also has an important application for education - namely interactive teaching. Using a compatible multimedia PC, a digital video close-circuit TV camera, and a communications smart card, a teacher can teach individuals in as many as 50 separate locations from a computer screen.

Using Windows based software, video conferencing transmits two-way sound and moving images in real time. As someone speaks their voice is recorded, along with a video image. Members of the class see and hear the teacher on their computer screen and, as individuals, are invited to ask questions. The CCTV camera on top of the computer captures the image of whoever is speaking and presents it in a window at the side of the main screen.

The teacher and class are linked up via BT's new integrated system digital network, ISDN - a broadband fibre optic cable that can transmit data, faxes, TV and phone signals simultaneously. The fibre optic cable contains many strands of optical  glass fibre which transmit sound and vision as a computer-readable digital code. With a growing market for applications, such as interactive shopping or home-banking and the Internet, ISDN could one day replace conventional phone lines.

The name for the system, Campus Vision, reveals BT's primary market - the FE and HE sector, where lecturers can disseminate specialist knowledge to a wider student base, openingup the possibilities for academic links between universities. But video-conferencing can help maximise teaching resources, for example, by encouraging schools to share teaching of small specialist groups, particularly post 16, and to create communities of schools in isolated rural areas. Where previously a peripatetic teacher would have to divide his or her time between schools, arranging visits to teach the same material to different groups, schools could now timetable the same teacher for one lesson, cutting down on costs.

Video conferencing is just pasrt of BT's growing involvement in the world of education. As part of its community partnership programme the company is spending �3 million a year on education and training and has 22 education managers in different regions. The company is putting a lot of money Into its Link Schools awards schemes as well as funding academic  research.

Peter Thompson, head of BT education services, says: "As part of the company's continuing partnership with education, BT is involved in a wide range of projects throughout the education sector. These range from teacher training, curriculum development and work with BT's Link Schools, and the aim is to provide the skills needed by the UK in the 21st century."

To date, BT's Link School scheme covers 95 schools - all of which have won awards for communications projects. Wallington High School for Girls and Coombe Girls School, in south west London, for example, have an ISDN line and have used awards worth �20000 to install Internet and video-conferencing suites to aid Pupils with the learning of foreign languages. Besides building links with other schools and colleges, the schools have used their video-conferencing to enhance teacher training and Coombe Girls School will soon be taking part in a link up with schools in the US.