SCHOOLS LEARN TO MAKE USE OF TV DISHES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 7, 1993                   TAG: 9303050104
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: F-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOHN GIBBONS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
SCHOOLS LEARN TO MAKE USE OF TV DISHES
While home entertainment is by far the most prevalent use of C-band satellite dish systems, schools are becoming an increasingly large slice of the market.
ACS Satellite System's Matt Whitcomb said that when he started out in the dish business, "my thoughts were that this was primarily going to be used for education one of these days, and not for home entertainment; and my involvement with the Department of Education has proven that thought to be correct."
Whitcomb has been working with the Virginia Department of Education to put satellite systems for distant learning in high schools and middle schools around the state.
"The education part of it is growing so rapidly that it's unbelievable how that's catching on. . . . We've put in several hundred systems already for them."
Roanoke has been a part of that trend. There are satellite dishes at Fleming and Patrick Henry high schools and at Highland Park and Forest Park elementary schools. There also will be a dish at Virginia Heights Elementary School when renovations at that school are complete.
David Baker, library media coordinator of Roanoke schools, says, "If things go the way they're going now, you'll probably see a dish in every school. It may one day become a necessity more than a luxury."
As Whitcomb explains distant learning, "If you take a school, for instance, that's out in the boonies, they don't have the funding for a teacher that does calculus. If they have enough interest, then they can tune into the calculus class over the satellite."
The state offers a wide variety of classes, both at the university level and for kindergarten through 12th grade, that come over the satellite link. Students watch the classes on a television at their home school and can call the teacher on a toll-free number to ask questions. Homework can be sent to the teacher via a fax machine.
Baker also sees a great deal of utility in satellite technology for city schools as well. "A lot of what we use the dishes for [in addition to distant learning], are things like getting educational programs off of satellites that are not available on cable. Or we're getting delayed replay of ITV and PBS specials. . . . Another thing we use it for is foreign language instruction," where students can hear native speakers of the language they are studying in broadcasts from that country.
He pointed out that in the wake of this technological explosion "a lot of things are coming together. At one point we had television and cable and satellite and computers and videotape and all that was kind of separate. Now . . . it's all kind of blending together. There's really not a fine delineation between where one ends and the other begins."
Looking into the future, he said, "We're looking at the possibility of having more than 200 channels that we can tie into. And that's also going to have an impact on us in terms of selecting the best of the best instead of simply saying, `Well, here it is' and dump it on the laps of the teachers."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB