Graduate Education Using International Distance Education System via Satellite

我们通过卫星开展国际远程教育。授课内容为以英语授课的国际研究生课程。接受资助的大学是亚洲理工学院和环蒙古特理工学院，这两所大学都位于泰国曼谷。通过卫星可靠地传输图像和语音，并使用互联网电视会议系统进行问答。后者降低了接收端的设备成本，同时保持了讲师与学生的实时互动，使学生保持较高的学习积极性。每学期至少有一次，讲师被派到接收大学进行面对面的讲座，这也让学生感到高兴，感觉自己受到了很好的对待。我们对世界上几所大学的校历、时间表等进行了调查。很明显，教育制度并不总是相互吻合的，但我们也发现，如果我们仔细审查两所大学的制度，我们可能会发现几乎相同的时间段。找到这样的交叉点并不总是可能的，也不是一件容易的工作。我们可能不得不结合一门密集课程的特别讲座。事实上，暑假期间我们在泰国进行了一次密集的课程，这非常吸引了泰国学生。国际远程教育不可避免地存在结构性障碍，如不同的教育制度、语言障碍、物理距离、时差等。我们已经证明，通过相互理解和相互努力，这些障碍是可以克服的，并成功地进行了远程教育。学生调查也显示出积极的反应。我们认为，成功的关键是双方的热情。

We conducted international distance education via satellite. The delivered lectures are the ones taught in English as international graduate program. The receiving universities are Asian Institute of Technology and Ring Mongkut's Institute of Technology, both in Bangkok, Thailand. Pictures and voices were reliably transmitted in high quality via satellite, while internet TV conference system was used for questions and answers. The latter reduced the equipment cost at receiving side while maintaining the real time interaction between lecturer and students, which made the students to keep their high motivation. At least once in a term, the lecturers were sent to the receiving university to have a face-to-face lecture session, which also made students happy and feel they are well treated.We conducted a survey of school calendars, time tables, etc. of several universities in the world. It becomes clear that the educational systems do not always coincide each other, but it is also found that we may find almost common time slot if we carefully review the systems of two universities. Finding such intersection is not always possible nor an easy job. We may have to combine a special lecture of a intensive course. In fact we conducted an intensive course during summer vacation in Thailand, which attracted Thai students very much.International distance education inevitably have structural barrier, such as different educational systems, language barrier, physical distance, time difference, etc. We have shown these obstacles can be overcome by mutual understanding and mutual efforts, and conducted successful distance education. Students' survey also show positive responses. We believe that the key points of the success was the enthusiasm of both sides.