Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 3, 1995 TAG: 9502030032
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MELISSA DEVAUGHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Eighth-grader Russell Holbrook knows Riner is somewhere in Montgomery County, but he's never been there.
"I thought of it as mainly a farming community," said the 14-year-old Blacksburg Middle School pupil. "I thought it probably had a town council, and that it was set up sort of like Blacksburg."
Wrong.
Through a computer research project on the history of Montgomery County, Holbrook has learned that Riner is much more than a large swath of farmland with a road through the middle.
Since the beginning of the school year, Holbrook and more than 100 eighth-graders have researched the county's history, interviewed local residents and written letters to area governing bodies in a project called the Montgomery County Multimedia Magazine.
Teachers Suzan Mauney and Donna Swenson started the project to teach their pupils about the Blacksburg Electronic Village, an experiment linking the community to the Internet. The information the pupils gather will eventually be put on the Internet, a network of global computer networks.
"This has been so much better than we expected," said Swenson, who has been teaching children in Montgomery County for almost 20 years. "We're finding out that these kids don't even know about the county."
For instance, Holbrook now knows that "Riner is one of the most growing areas in the county.
"And it's not like Blacksburg at all," he said. "It's sort of unattached from the rest of the county."
Emily Cox, who is studying Shawsville, said she envisioned the area as "a whole bunch of farms and maybe a little downtown," when in fact there is no downtown area, and farming is not the only source of income - most residents now go out of the community for work.
"It's got a little more history than I thought, too," said the 13-year -old. Swenson and Mauney designed the computer project after seeing a similar demonstration from a California school at a technology conference last spring.
"It appealed to us greatly because it was kid-oriented," said Mauney, a 13-year teaching veteran. "We wanted to do something like it, but we didn't want to just focus on Blacksburg because [the electronic village] goes farther than that."
The pupils started by dividing into five groups representing Riner, Shawsville, Christiansburg, Blacksburg and Montgomery County. They were charged with finding out as much as they could about those areas - recreation, history, government, economy and other community information.
To become familiar with the computer, the pupils compiled a list of questions for each category and posted on the Internet.
"Who founded Montgomery County? When?" asks the group studying Montgomery County.
Riner researchers want to know: "What is Riner's most popular agricultural product?" "What is the average income?"
The group studying Shawsville wants to know if there are any shopping centers, factories or manufacturers in the area.
"Who is the highest official in Christiansburg?" the town group wants to know.
While anyone can respond to the questions, not many people have.
"The project is still new," Mauney said. "And some of the areas, like Shawsville, aren't even connected [to the Internet] yet. We're hoping once it catches on, we'll get more answers." Now that Riner Elementary and Auburn High and Middle School have the connections, Mauney is hoping for more responses from that area.
The pupils agree that the Internet is exciting - "you can go anywhere in the world you want," boasts 14-year-old Tim Williams of the Montgomery County government group.
And working on the computer gives them a sense of taking control over their work.
"They like working on the computer, even if it's just word processing," Swenson said. And it is used as an incentive to get reluctant learners to finish other assignments so they can use the computer, Mauney added, completing Swenson's thought process with an ease that comes from team-teaching together for the past seven years.
But most importantly, agreed Mauney and Swenson, the pupils now have a better understanding of their county.
"That's - in the long run - going to be the best part of this project," Swenson said.
To send e-mail information about your community, write to one of the following: sville.mcmmmbev.net, cburg.mcmmmbev.net, bburg.mcmmmbev.net, riner.mcmmmbev.net or montco.mcmmmbev.net. To see the questions for each area on the World Wide Web, go to the electronic village's home page (at http://www.bev.net/) and look for County Schools on the Web under Education Center. Questions for each area are listed individually.
by CNB