Educators are increasing the use of video streaming - the progressive feeding of small chunks of information that can be viewed as they are downloaded - to supplement onsite teaching. Some hope the technology will enable them eventually to offer full degrees online.

"Nobody in the hearing world cared if the video was a little jerky because they had a soundtrack with it," said David Stecca, chief executive of Deaf Video Communications of America Inc. of Wheaton, Ill. "Video streaming is still far from perfect, but with high-speed Internet connection, a deaf person can now see good, clean-motion sign language over the Internet."

Pastor Fred Adams is relying on video-streamed classes to expand enrollment at Sword Deaf College, a suburban Cincinnati religious college he founded to train people to minister to the deaf.

"Students who cannot attend classes at deaf colleges or universities can take courses online this way," said Adams, who lost his hearing at the age of 8 months.

While videotaped instruction has been available to the deaf and hard of hearing for years, tapes - and later CDs and DVDs - had to be kept and stored and required students to have the equipment to view them. Video streaming allows easy viewing of large video files that can be offered live or pre-recorded. Now it also allows the quality of transmission needed to view sign language.

"In the last couple of years, more communities have gained access to affordable high-speed connections with broadband, cable and DSL (digital subscriber line) and that has allowed more deaf people to benefit from video streaming," said Stephen Campbell, manager of technology support services at National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y.

Tsutomu Araki, a hearing professor in mechanical engineering at Tsukuba College of Technology in Tsukuba, Japan, uses the technology to teach deaf students.

"Video streaming of Web-based presentations and meetings is a real benefit to deaf students and faculty in Japan because they can access these resources at anytime and can repeat the presentation as necessary," he said in an e-mail.

Andy Warmack has attended classes with interpreters and has used video-streamed instruction. He says the technology is a breakthrough for deaf students because it makes location irrelevant and increases their access to education.

Even interpreted classes present problems for deaf students because instruction is more indirect, said Warmack, 36, who is a minister to the deaf at Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington, Ky.

Adams is raising money to build a 100-student dormitory at his campus in Mason but hopes to enroll many more students around the world with video-streamed classes.

The Christian Deaf Virtual University, based in Birmingham, Ala., hopes to become accredited so that deaf students can earn degrees solely online. The online university provides religious courses taught in American Sign Language via video streaming to deaf students pursuing degrees at other universities.