NASA LIVE: Communicating Knowledge to the University Community

摘要

According to NASA Administrator, Sean O'Keefe, NASA's mission is "to understand and protect our home planet; to explore the Universe and search for life; and to inspire the next generation of explorers…as only NASA can" (2002). NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC), located in Hampton, Virginia, is one of NASA's leading aeronautical and aerospace research facilities that employs thousands of engineers and scientists who produce cutting edge research and technology. With resident experts, research findings, and commercial applications, Hosted by NASA's Center for Distance Learning, we recognize that access to such individuals and information would offer students and faculty across the nation the unique experience of making real world connections to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics taught in the classroom, as only NASA can. One method of real-time access that was researched and explored was videoconferencing; videoconferencing "is the transmission of images (video) and (audio) back and forth between two or more physically separate locations" (International Trade Data Network, 1999). Therefore, NASA LIVE (Learning through Interactive Videoconferencing Experiences) represents a new dimension in communicating knowledge and educational outreach to faculty and students in an interactive, virtual setting.