Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 20, 1995 TAG: 9506200081
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: CURRENT EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RINER LENGTH: Medium
Move over, Mickey. Riner Elementary is in the spotlight now.
With lights glaring and cameras rolling, students from Riner, Bethel and Auburn Middle schools made their film debut Thursday. The Disney Channel arrived to add Montgomery County schools and the Blacksburg Electronic Village to the documentary, "Epcot: A Journey to Discovery."
The syndicated, one-hour special looks at how technology will affect communities in the future and what advances are being made - within the Epcot center and throughout the world.
Mark Hunt, segment director for a video production company hired by Disney, said he has filmed in San Francisco, New York, Paris ... and now, Blacksburg.
The crew spent one day with BEV, shopping electronically at Wade's Market. Then came the day at Riner.
"Andrew Cohill [director of development for BEV] suggested the school's computers as a good example of how technology is reaching out to outer areas," Hunt said.
Under the direction of Melissa Matusevich, gifted programs teacher, and Virginia Tech graduate student Rob Mohn, the students watched and talked with fifth-graders from Washington state.
The teleconference was made possible through CUCMe (pronounced see-you-see-me) software installed at Riner Elementary this year. An eyeball-sized camera that sits atop the computer transmits images; a microphone sends the voices.
The Riner students first met those at Sunset Elementary, located on a small island off the coast of Washington, just before the school year ended.
Last week, the two schools met again - this time for Hollywood.
First came the classroom review, with Matusevich calmly standing in front of the blackboard reviewing geography facts.
"Oh, god, I'm a nervous wreck," she said of her film debut. But after the third take, Matusevich ad-libbed her lecture, taking questions under the hot lights as a long microphone bobbed overhead.
The students were on their best behavior for the camera - even though they came to school while on summer break.
"We had no problem getting them in here," Riner Principal Keith Rowland said. "They love technology."
Riner fifth-graders Amy Zeh and Courtney Venguin said they've talked to people all over the world via computer.
"One day, we got Paris," Zeh said, "and we started talking to this French guy and we didn't know what he was saying."
For them, talking with Sunset Elementary was a breeze. First, the two school compared their geography.
Jesse Barker, another Riner fifth-grader, held up a drawing of the dogwood tree; a Washington student showed a picture of her state tree, a hemlock.
Riner's Stacy Price showed the viewing audience across the country the price of soda (50) and soon learned that it's more expensive to live on an island where the soda price is 10 cents more.
Then came the interesting part: open discussions.
"What kind of music do you listen to?" Auburn seventh-grader David Strathy asked into the microphone.
The answer, in unison, was not surprising coming from a town 25 minutes from the grunge capitol: "Alternative music."
Hunt and his camera got all this on video - after a few takes, that is. Voices heard from Sunset were sometimes difficult to understand and the video images were slow - kind of like watching dancers under a strobe light.
"But in a few years, the technology will be so much better," Tech student Mohn said.
Mohn, a computer science graduate student, has developed his thesis around the challenges Montgomery County schools has faced in implementing this technology.
"OK, let's say goodbye now," Hunt said after an hour of talk and two video tape cartridges.
Bethel students Travis Honaker and Christian Miller got in the last shot, turning the computer's camera upside down and sticking their face up close.
A sea of waving hands and laughing faces screamed "Goodbye" from the West Coast.
Hunt said the documentary should run at the end of July.
by CNB