NHK to offer educational videos to schools via Internet

The Yomiuri Shimbun

NHK will distribute on the Internet high-definition educational video clips and programs free of charge to primary and middle schools for three years from September for use in classes, sources said.

The video clips and programs will be made available for educational purposes by reediting NHK programs.

The Foundation for MultiMedia Communications, a body that promotes use of the Internet, will buy the content from NHK and distribute it to schools. NTT Corp., NEC Corp. and Microsoft Corp. also will pay part of the costs for buying the programs and clips.

About 3,000 video clips running several minutes each on science, social studies, language and integrated study topics, and 400 educational programs of about 15 minutes are expected to be available for distribution.

NHK already makes some educational content available on the Internet, but the image quality is less than satisfactory and they are not widely used in classrooms.

Under the new plan, images will be of digital quality and can be enlarged to fill an entire personal computer screen, provided schools have an optical-fiber connection and a local area network.
DVD-quality images also can be viewed on large flat-screen televisions connected to a PC.

The video content includes images of growing plants, shots of nature, and the plan reportedly presents almost no copyright problems.

The center expects 5,000 primary and middle schools to use the content by the end of fiscal 2006, and 17,000 schools--about half of the nation's schools--by September 2009. NHK says the project will be available only to primary and middle schools.

Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Heizo Takenaka's private advisory panel on communications and broadcasting is discussing how to effectively use NHK's abundant content. The plan is expected to attract attention as a step toward the integration of communications and broadcasting.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20060406TDY08005.htm