Japanese already use
cell phones to shop, read novels, exchange e-mail, search for
restaurants and take video clips. Now they''re taking a university
course. Cyber University, the nation''s only university to offer all
classes on the internet, began offering a class on the mysteries of the
pyramids on mobile phones last Wednesday. For classes for personal
computers, the lecture downloads play on the monitor as text and images
in the middle, and a smaller video of the lecture shows in the corner,
complete with sound. The cell phone version, which pops up as streaming video on the handset''s tiny screen, plays just the PowerPoint images.
In the demonstration last Wednesday at a Tokyo hotel, an image of the
pyramids popped up on the screen and changed to a text image as a
professor''s voice played from the handset speakers. Cyber
University, which opened in April with government approval to give
bachelor degrees, has 1,850 students. The virtual campus is 71 per cent
owned by Softbank Corp, a major Japanese mobile carrier, which also has
broadband operations and offers online gaming, shopping and electronic
stock trading services. The cell phone lectures, may be expanded to
other courses but for now will be for the pyramids course, according to
Cyber University, which offers about 100 courses, including ancient
Chinese culture, online journalism and English literature.
Unlike
the other classes, the one on cell phones will be available to the
public for free, although viewers must pay phone fees. The catch is
the lectures can only be seen on some Softbank phones. The service may
be expanded to other carriers, officials said. Sakuji Yoshimura,
who heads Cyber University and gives the pyramids course, said the
university gives educational opportunities for people who find it hard
to attend real-life universities, including those with jobs, the
handicapped and the sick. " Our duty as educators is to respond to the needs of people who want to learn," Yoshimura said.
He scoffed at those who question the value of internet and cell-phone
classes, noting attendance is relatively high at 86 per cent. Whether
students play the lecture downloads to the end can be monitored by the
university digitally, officials said. Athough real-time exchange
with professors and other students isn''t possible in Net classes,
social networking and other cyber-discussions are flourishing, said
Hiroshi Kawahara, professor in the Faculty of Information Technology
and Business.