SES (NYSE Euronext Paris and Luxembourg Stock Exchange: SESG) has premiered its Live Interactive Classroom application with partners from the Catholic University Eichstätt – Ingolstadt and The Permanent Centre for Education in Kampala, Uganda.
The session is part of an ongoing eLearning project called KUganda and will feature a demonstration delivering an interactive classroom experience via SES Broadband Services’ satellite broadband solution to Ugandan teachers located at The Permanent Center for Education. During the interactive session, Germany-based Professor Dr. Gaby Gien will deliver a seminar together with students in Eichstätt.
“Part of the challenge is to provide teachers in Africa with computers and resources. Without Internet connectivity, teachers and children are deprived of the use of educational content online. Bridging this digital divide is key,” said Dr. Gien, speaking for the KUganda initiative. “With this demonstration, we aim to show how satellite broadband can help to improve social and educational development by providing access where it wasn’t previously possible.”
“Satellite broadband technology has the potential to be transformative by enabling us at KUganda to plan frequent interactive training sessions and increase the scale and impact of our work while accelerating knowledge transfer and reducing costs and time,” Dr. Gien added.
The Live Interactive Classroom application combines a video signal and presentation slides in a comfortable interface. With state of the art peer-to-peer technology, it enables seamless audio/video communications with multiple students anywhere. It requires no third party software installation or licenses and runs on standard equipment like PCs, laptops or tablets on both sides, while tutor-controlled live feedback enables classroom-like interaction.
The application demonstrated by KUganda is part of the SES Broadband eEducation Network, a service which offers an end-to-end learning environment for teachers, schools and classrooms, as well as for individual students.
“We are pleased to be able to contribute and be part of the KUganda project, which is the first to benefit from our solution. We hope that the SES Broadband eEducation Network will enable more universities and institutions, publishers of educational content and countries in Africa to deliver education services to remote areas in the future,” said Patrick Biewer, Managing Director of SES Broadband Services.