ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 8, 1996 TAG: 9610080027
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: Reporters' notebook
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER
I still can't help cracking a smile when I see someone flip open a little hand-held device and start talking, much like the "Star Trek" communicators the 1960s TV series projected for the far future. At least I haven't seen any flip-phone user "beam up" - yet.
Alvin Toeffler coined the term "future shock" to indicate how those of us in the late prime of youth react to the increasing pace of change, especially since - as we grow older - time seems to go by faster, anyway. I have an editor who delights in introducing me as someone "who's been in journalism longer than I've been alive"; he would not recall the original run of that Trek series, of a time before people walked on the moon, or even of carriage returns on typewriters. All that is certainly true for many of you other young whippersnappers reading this.
But changes in communications have been just as rapid for you, if not more so. They are coming faster all the time everywhere, including the New River Valley.
One of the first things outsiders think of in terms of our communications technology is the Blacksburg Electronic Village, even though it has now spun off with private-sector Internet access providers who are independent of Virginia Tech. Still, it is being used as a model for other communities in Southwest Virginia to enhance their computer-based communications. Valley governments are almost routinely putting their home pages on the World Wide Web. Today an Internet advisory meeting is being held at the Southwest Virginia Governor's School to update schools and businesses on developing a high-performance learning community for Southwest Virginia.
The Governor's School has already worked with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to find a way of setting up a computing and communications telecommunications for the region. The system is called FutureNET, and its ultimate goal is to connect educational institutions throughout the school's service area - the counties of Bland, Carroll, Giles, Floyd, Pulaski, Smyth and Wythe and the city of Galax - to the Internet with the school as a hub.
Even more important than the school becoming a regional connectivity hub is its potential to use the World Wide Web as an educational tool. Some educators, students and researchers are using the Web, but there are still not many on-line classrooms and less than 3 percent of schools nationally are said to have Internet access.
Let's face it. Dialing up the Internet or getting on the Web is a cumbersome process, involving umpteen steps and the typing in of long strings of passwords only to frequently find access denied because of too many users, a glitch on a phone line or even the weather. But that will change. Compare it to the days of turning the knob for a radio dial to try to bring in a station clearly to today's radios which zero in on stations at the punch of a button. (I know, I know; some of you whippersnappers don't remember fine-tuning radio dials, either.)
The pace of change is further shown by a report to the Governor's School board last week by Jim Sandidge, information technology manager for Pulaski County schools, on another approach to linking up schools in the New River Valley and beyond. This approach uses wireless technology, bouncing computer signals off special antennas resembling satellite dishes that are placed on school roofs and mountain ranges.
Some schools in Pulaski County are already transmitting data in this way, which gets around the monthly costs of dedicated telephone lines. That cost has been a major factor in keeping schools off the Internet and Web.
This was a new technology with more potential than local school officials realized at first, and Sandidge realizes that more developing technologies will be right behind this one. As with radio tuning, the day may not be far off when valley residents can punch a button and immediately be cruising the information superhighway.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB