Bring the Outback In: Distance Learning Down Under | Edutopia

Bring the Outback In: Distance Learning Down Under | Edutopia:

Educating kids in the remote and rugged outback of Australia's Northern Territory requires Aussie ingenuity and self-reliance -- traits learned from living great distances from each other in a barren desert twice as big as California.

Such geographical challenges don't faze educators from the Alice Springs School of the Air. Dubbed "the largest classroom in the world," the ASSOA serves far-flung kids by employing the latest technology to connect and educate. Until 1995, the School of the Air depended on two-way radios for connectedness (hence the school's name), but now the far richer environment provided by computers and the Internet more easily spans the vast distances between teachers and students.