| Opportunities in education are lacking in many parts of the developed nations and are missing in most parts of the developing nations. This is, in significant part, due to shortages of classroom instructional resources such as quality teaching staff, hardware and software. Distance education (DE) has proved to be a successful teaching approach and overcomes some of the barriers imposed by classroom instruction, primarily due to the shortage of teachers.;Many DE software tools have been developed and are in use today. Most require high network capacity, not supported by common long distance wireless network infrastructures in many places of the world. To address obstacles related to network infrastructures of developing countries for content delivery and exchange, this research develops the design of a cost-effective distributed architecture for content delivery and exchange over emerging limited capacity wireless technologies. The design of the proposed target architecture includes an overlay network with distributed peer-to-peer systems. Simulation is used to explore parameters and metrics in order to validate the effectiveness and scalability of this architecture. An n-tier hierarchical training model to train local instructors by experienced instructors, using DE resources supported by this architecture, is discussed as a way to mitigate the teacher shortages in developing countries. The situation in Bangladesh is used to provide examples, based on the author's familiarity with it. |
