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

DATE: TUESDAY, December 28, 1993                   TAG: 9312300037
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: By PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN                                LENGTH: Medium

SCHOOL OFFICIALS PLAY CATCHUP AT GOVERNOR'S SCHOOL

At first glance, they looked too mature to be students at the Southwest Virginia Governor's School.

But there they were in classes all the same - superintendents, directors of instruction, computer and technology educators and principals from Giles, Montgomery, Carroll, Floyd, Bland and Pulaski counties and the city of Galax. There were representatives of Radford University, Virginia Tech, James Madison University and New River Community College, and officials from business and industry including Hoechst-Celanese, Pulaski Community Hospital, Volvo GM Heavy Truck Corp. and ASEA-Brown Boveri.

They had signed up for Technological Applications in Education, a recent afternoon program at the regional school sponsored by nine businesses, universities and departments.

``We've all got one commitment, and that's to better education,'' Pat Duncan, the school's director, told the visitors before they split into groups to attend workshops in physical science, chemistry, biology, mathematics, computer lab and integrated curriculum research.

The ever-growing technologies in fields such as computers are often more difficult for educators who have not grown up with them than for the students they are teaching.

``You see them with their little hand-held games and their remote controls,'' Duncan said of the students. Computers are not mysterious to them, she said.

The Governor's School has been offering in-service training to educators from the counties it serves and beyond using its advanced teaching equipment. ``We have upwards of $10,000 or more in software,'' Duncan said.

The school also is working on a project that would link its computer programs by telephone with high schools from which it draws its students. The link initiative will start with Pulaski County High School, where the Governor's School is located.

After gauging the success of the project on its home campus, the Governor's School will work on reaching out to science departments in other schools that might share its software by telephone.

by CNB