This kind of access to learning is critical for the so-called new economy, in which companies must compete in fast-changing markets, turn out products in record time and keep employees trained in a learning-on-demand fashion.

In the same way, other e-learning companies are focusing on elementary-education programs in science to start building the basic foundation for a knowledgeable next-generation work force.

E-learning market
Once referred to as distance learning, the ability to take courses using the Internet, computers, networking and multimedia technologies from a remote location is today referred to as e-learning. E-learning is part of a larger category of distance-learning programs that include using CD ROMs and VHS tapes to distribute programs.

Market researchers report that distance learning is the fastest growing segment of the education market. In fact, it is expected to triple in size by 2002.

One piece of that market is e-learning, which grew from zero in 1996 to $1.2 billion in 1999. The e-learning market is forecast to reach between $10 billion to $12 billion by 2003, when it will surpass classroom learning in corporations, according to Jim Ayube, senior analyst at the Boston-based Aberdeen Group.

Today, much of e-learning is dedicated to training for information technology, an area where the demand for skilled professionals is high and the supply is low.

Having educational programs that can be accessed at any time from a desktop PC or Macintosh enables the IT industry to train its work force in a just-in-time manner. While most e-learning companies today offer e-reading courses rather than true virtual classrooms, seamless broadband access is expected to make possible much more realistic, interactive educational programs, according to Aberdeen's Ayube.

Broadband access will allow employees to take anything from a five-minute refresher course on how software works that they can access on their PDAs, to sessions lasting several weeks on say, a new programming language, for which they will need a PC.

Microsoft Corp. (Redmond, Washington) co-founder Paul Allen is one of the visionaries who recognized the need for continuous learning and acted on the idea that converging technologies will create tremendous opportunities for education anytime and anywhere.

Allen's company, click2learn.com (formerly known as Asymetrix Learning Systems Inc., Bellevue, Wash.), has been developing online learning programs since 1984. In recent years, click2learn. com has emerged as a leading provider of online program-authoring tools and an Internet distribution platform for online learning. Click2learn.com provides products and services that let corporations design, manage, catalogue and track their own online educational material. In addition, the company's new e-Learning Network allows corporations to instantly establish virtual university Web sites on company intranets that are custom designed for their employees' training needs.

Click2learn.com's John Martin, director of product marketing, said the company's mission is to provide tools that " help companies move from course-based education programs to on-demand learning where users access what they need, when they need it, from any location."

Click2learn.com is one of many companies chasing the emerging corporate e-learning market, which analysts estimate at about $66 billion to $100 billion in 2000, with a compound annual growth rate of 100 percent each year for the next three years.

More corporations are expected to turn to e-learning to train employees on new products, new management techniques and new business skills.

Oceanographer Robert Ballard founded the Jason Foundation for Education in 1989.

And e-learning companies like Click2learn.com are looking ahead to how they can improve online training in the future. The company's position is that many opportunities exist to enrich the education experience by making content available in forms other than text. Those other forms include video, synchronous events, live broadcasts and business simulations and interactions.

Martin said his company is working with customers to explore the use of handheld and non-PC devices to deliver access to small bites of learning content, rather than full-length courses.

"We think there's an opportunity to deliver learning content in smaller pieces and we think the future is bright for wireless access, but most of today's [educational] content is not optimized for this yet," Martin said.

Other companies see opportunities in e-learning as well. Ninth House Network, a San Francisco company launched in 1997, is focusing on providing a broadband learning network for Fortune 1000 corporations. Tony Mitchell, Ninth House Network's e-learning evangelist, envisions a world where students have "unlimited access to the best teachers, scholars and students via a multipoint network that can be reached from anywhere at any time."

The program content is based on material licensed from best-selling authors and instructors like Tom Peters ("In Search of Excellence") and Ken Blanchard ("One-Minute Manager") and designed by in-house PhDs.

Ninth House Network offers what it calls "thin content" in the form of online mentors and conversational programs that can be accessed over a 56-K modem connection to the Internet.

Inside the firewall

For higher bandwidth content, Ninth House Network places a media server inside a company's firewall so users can tap their desktop PCs to access video files on the server via a corporate LAN.

The Jason Foundation for Education (Needham Heights, Mass.) is one of the few e-learning companies that goes beyond corporate learning to provide children with interactive educational programs online built around real science expeditions.

Dr. Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who discovered the remains of the legendary RMS Titanic, founded the company in 1989 to help bring science to life for children. The Jason Foundation integrates a yearlong science expedition, a school curriculum endorsed by the National Science Teachers Association, supplemental video programming, a Web site and educational broadcast technologies to bring to students the excitement of science and exploration.

Inabeth Miller, president of the Jason Foundation, said the organization wants all schools to eventually receive the programming "so that everyone can watch the places we go in streaming video in classrooms and in their own homes."

Currently the program reaches between 1 million and 2 million students each year and is the largest science project of its kind in this country.

Today, the organization conducts yearlong science expeditions with scientists and researchers who work with educators to create a curriculum built around the expedition. A gated Web site enables yearlong interactivity between the schools and the scientists, and between and among schools. In the second semester of the school year, the foundation conducts 55 hours of live broadcasts from the expedition site hosted by Dr. Ballard. These can be viewed by streaming video or by satellite, cable or public television broadcasts, depending on the region. This summer the expedition will take place in the Black Sea in the Mediterranean.

"We're trying to make access as ubiquitous as possible," Miller said.

But all of this is just the beginning. Miller said future plans include redoing the public Web site so that anyone can access information about the expeditions and chat with scientists and have links to National Geographic and Earth Watch expeditions as well.

Currently the foundation is working with HandSpring Inc., the University of Michigan, the Concord Consortium (Concord, Mass.) and other organizations to experiment with wireless technology and sensor devices that can immediately input information onto the Internet. One experiment involves children making low-cost sensor devices that they can use in the field to measure temperature, light and heat, and then send the information to the Web.

While there are other companies focused on online learning, Miller believes the Jason Foundation for Education is unique.

"No one is doing what we're doing, taking live expeditions and broadcasting them and offering interactions between researchers and children," Miller said.

The Jason Foundation is not just offering scanned textbooks and streamed lectures, but communication between children and real scientists. That offers excitement no flat screen can match.