When most people think of distance learning, they think of Internet-based classes, but many agencies also use a satellite network to train their employees.

The Government Education and Training Network is used mostly for required continuing education, including mission certification. It is not for voluntary education. Courses include acquisition management, hazardous waste management, aircraft maintenance, air traffic control, medical training, contract and environmental law, leadership development and many others.

Seventeen agencies primarily use GETN to train their own employees in specific areas, using their own courses. But some courses can be shared across agency lines.

Philip Westfall, president of the Federal Government Distance Learning Association, contributed to the establishment of GETN, the interagency interactive television network that began with two uplinks in 1993 and now reaches 2,300 sites in the U.S. and around the world.

Educating via satellite is not new, but the fact that 17 agencies are cooperating through GETN and sharing equipment and facilities to make it more cost effective has not received much attention, said Westfall, who also is network director for the Air Force Institute for Advanced Distributed Learning. The institute offers career development and technical courses.

"The most significant advantage is the fact that we're saving a lot of money because we're acting as a single group to buy bandwidth," Westfall said.

Once the technology is in place, satellite also saves over paying travel costs for employees to attend classes in person.

One of the best applications for satellite distance learning is for lengthy, required courses — for example, courses that run seven hours a day for two weeks and must be completed for certification by a deadline.

It's too hard to take these types of courses online with the interruptions in an office environment, or in an any-time, any-place format, Westfall said.

On the other hand, online is better than satellite for short courses such as prerecorded videos that can be watched from a desk.

Satellite courses, which are typically live, also provide good interactivity between the instructor and students, Westfall said. For example, one accrediting agency in the medical community will not allow credit for self-directed courses taken in an office environment. They have to be classroom- or satellite-taught, where there's more control. Satellite interactive television best emulates the classroom setting, Westfall said.

Studies show that learning is about the same whether students are enrolled in residence or distance learning, he said. "Fifteen years of research of distance learning show it's not the medium that influences scores. It's the quality of the instruction."

Interactive television is suitable both for training — teaching how to do something a certain way or to meet particular standards; and for more academic education — preparation to anticipate and deal with problems, and learning the laws behind subjects, Westfall said.

Interactive television is one-way video with two-way audio. An instructor can take questions similar to a call-in television show, or via e-mail.

It doesn't matter if you have 300 students in one auditorium or a few students in 100 places, except that students might feel more comfortable speaking up if they're in a smaller group, Westfall said. A typical class might have 10 locations, with about 10 students in each location.

Satellite also can be used to "dump" data, or transfer large files to allow for electronic learning through a local server rather than the Internet.

Traditional classes can be easily converted to satellite courses, Westfall said.

"Satellite is a heavy lifter."