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

DATE: SATURDAY, July 30, 1994                   TAG: 9408110039
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                 LENGTH: Medium

RADFORD SCHOOL BOARD GETS LOOK AT NEW ART, COMPUTER FACILITIES

Students at Radford High School will have a little more room and a lot more computers when they show up Aug. 29. At its Thursday meeting, the Radford School Board got a first-hand look at how a new art and music classroom addition and more than $185,000 in new computer technology will enhance education for the school's approximately 500 students.

The new addition - which is still getting finishing touches - incorporates a roomy art classroom and work area plus a music education area with a vaulted ceiling and even a small balcony "for observation" that's available only via a pull-down stairway. The limited access didn't deter board chairman Guy Gentry and board member Carter Effler from clambering up for a look.

The new wing - built off the back of the high school - also has storage cubicles for instruments, individual music practice rooms, and additional offices for the Guidance Department.

The space freed up by the new music classroom will house the school's nursing program. Art and nursing students previously used the Arnheim House - an historic structure on the high school campus - for classroom space. Its future remains unclear.

Computerized educational technology at Radford High School also took "a quantum leap," according to Bruce Criswell, who coordinates technology for the school system. He showcased five new computers for the school library which incorporate an on-line card catalog as well as educational programs with sound and pictures on CD-ROM.

Checking out books will be as simple as scanning the bar code on each volume, Criswell explained to the gathering of board members, teachers and administrators. Students at Dalton Intermediate School next door also will be able to access the library's computers.

Even administrators are on the learning curve of the new technology. A few technical questions from the board's computer afficiados, Chip Craig and Carter Effler, stumped Criswell. "I'm just learing one step ahead of you guys," he told the pair.

Business classrooms at Radford High also received new computers and software, and older machines have been relegated to less-demanding tasks. Individual workstations will have access to each other and to outside networks - including the Internet and Virginia's Public Education Network.

Vocational education students also will see more - and better - computerized systems in their classes. Ren Poff's drafting classroom now sports computer-assisted drafting, or CAD, software as technology displaces the old drafting table. Maury Sharp's machine shop has a new computerized numerical control lathe that lets students model their work on the screen before peforming it for real. "If there's a mistake, you see it there first," Sharp explained.

The equipment is so new he hasn't even plugged it in yet.

Craig estimated that the new technology influx has approximately doubled the number of computers.

by CNB