Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 27, 1993 TAG: 9307270232
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
\ Lee County's Thomas Walker High School lacks a biology teacher. The one it had resigned this year, and applicants haven't been knocking down the door to get in.
But nobody's panicking over at the School Board office, even as the first day of the new school year draws closer. They don't have to, said Director of Instruction Pearl Moyers.
If they don't find a replacement by fall, there's always fiber optics.
Thomas Walker will take part in a pilot project this year that uses a system of fiber-optic phone lines and two-way television monitors to link it with another high school and with Mountain Empire Community College. Sponsored by C&P Telephone Co., it will be the public school system's first foray into interactive electronic classrooms - technology that allows teachers in one location to see and speak to students who are miles away.
No biology teacher at Thomas Walker? The one at Lee High School, on the other end of the county, will fill in.
"We can do anything from aerobics to agriculture," said Moyers.
C&P will eventually offer the technology to all public schools in its service area, which covers nearly 2.3 million customers in roughly one-third of the state, Miller said.
Many schools in Virginia - particularly rural ones - already use electronic classrooms to expand their course offerings. But the current technology limits the amount of communication between teachers and students.
The students can see the teacher on the television screen, but she can't see them. To ask a question, they must dial her up on the telephone.
The new technology allows students and teachers to see and speak to each other freely, as if they were in the same room, said Paul Miller, C&P's manager for media relations.
Cameras can be voice activated so that they zoom in on a student who asks a question. If the room gets too noisy, the teacher can press a mute button so that she can be heard but the students cannot.
A similar project, sponsored by United Inter-Mountain Telephone Co., will link high schools in Abingdon and Bristol next year to Virginia Highlands Community College.
Congressman Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, said he hopes to announce a third venture with yet another telephone company within the next month.
Eventually, he hopes to place the technology in all the schools in his district, which stretches from Lee to Roanoke counties. He's raising money - both public and private - to help the schools pay for it.
Both C&P and United are covering the initial costs of their pilot projects, Boucher said, including use of the fiber optic lines for the first year.
After that, the companies will install the equipment at cost and the schools will have to pay for the phone lines, which might run as high as $2,000 per month.
Announcement of the electronic classroom venture comes at the same time the company is asking the SCC not to limit how much it can charge customers for services in the field of fiber optics and interactive television.
But regardless of how the SCC decides that issue, the education program will go through, said Miller, adding that C&P will offer the service to schools because of its "commitment to education in the state."
The cost of equipping a classroom could range from $25,000 to $50,000, depending on whether the classroom has to be reconfigured to accommodate the cameras, said Miller.
C&P will cap the monthly phone charges until 2000 and will donate $1 million per year until then to a fund to help schools pay for the equipment, he said.
But that won't be enough for everyone.
To cover the schools in his district alone, Boucher estimates he'll need $4 million.
So far, he's raised $75,000 and has commitments for more. He's also pushing for federal legislation that would provide $1.5 billion nationally over five years for research and development in this field.
Electronic classrooms, Boucher's convinced, could go a long way toward bringing the rural schools in his district on par with those in wealthier, urban areas, which offer a wider variety of courses.
"This is not a solution to the disparity problem," he said, "but it certainly is one way of addressing it."
"It's a thing whose time has come," said William Asbury, superintendent of Schools in Pulaski County.
He'd like to use interactive classrooms to offer more advanced level courses and additional foreign languages, such as Russian and Japanese. Rural counties often have a tough time making those courses available because there are too few students to take them or too few teachers applying for the jobs.
But a bigger problem, he said, is too few dollars.
"We're excited about the concept," he said. "We're concerned about the funding."
So is Bayes Wilson, superintendent of schools in Roanoke County.
Wilson sent Jane James, supervisor of library and media services, to a meeting with Boucher, C&P representatives, and other educators in the 9th Congressional District earlier this month to learn more about the system.
James was impressed with the technology, but said she was disappointed in the cost. She had hoped the county might save money by offering courses to all four high schools using only one teacher.
Each school would spend as much on phone lines as it would on a teacher's salary, she said.
One way around the expense would be to share costs with local colleges, said James.
That's an idea that appeals to Mark Emick, administrative assistant to the president of Virginia Western Community College.
"We're looking into it very seriously," he said.
Virginia Western needs the technology to reach students in some of its outlying areas, such as Rocky Mount or Buchanan, said Emick. In the past, it has had to send professors to Lord Botetourt High School and other locations to serve students.
Over the long term, electronic classrooms would be more cost effective than paying a teacher's salary, travel expenses and rent, Emick said. Setting up electronic classrooms in other locations would also help lessen the burden on the main campus, where enrollment has reached the school's capacity.
Northern Virginia Community College already uses two-way audio and video communication to link its five campuses.
Emick said electronic classrooms might also lessen the cost of a four-year college degree. For example, students already take satellite courses from Old Dominion University in Norfolk while sitting in classrooms on the campus of Virginia Western.
"We just feel like there's a lot of potential for it," he said.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.