ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 10, 1996 TAG: 9610100053
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-10 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
School divisions, colleges and universities in the New River Valley and beyond soon may be linked by computer through a fiber network with the Southwest Virginia Governor's School in Pulaski County.
"We're on the brink of a wide area network," Jim Sandidge, information systems manager for Pulaski County schools, told representatives of four other school divisions meeting at the Governor's School on Tuesday.
The key to avoiding the prohibitive monthly costs of special telephone lines is a wireless network being explored by Sandidge with a private firm, Solectek. It has already hooked Critzer Elementary School to Pulaski County High School, which is connected to the Governor's School with its high-speed telephone line provided through a National Aeronautics and Space Administration project.
Pulaski County School Superintendent Bill Asbury told the School Board Tuesday night that the phone line provided by NASA would have cost about $30,000 if the locality had had to pay for it. Margaret "Pat" Duncan, Governor's School director, told the board that about $71,000 has been invested the entire program.
Sandidge said the only limit on the new wireless technology seems to be line-of-sight. As long as an antenna on one school rooftop has a clear shot at the antenna atop another school, he said, the connection can be made.
"I've been in the network for hours, for days, trying to find something wrong with this," he said. "But it looks good."
Riverlawn Elementary is the only Pulaski County school that will require a tower to get signals from one of the five mountain-top antennas used by Solectek.
"I did not envision any of this," Sandidge said. "Teachers when they really get comfortable with this, they're going to want to download the neighborhood."
John Wenrich, network director at the Governor's School, said the NASA telephone line is up and functioning, Internet and World Wide Web training for area teachers is being made available by the Governor's School under the NASA project, and the school has come up with a networking plan for other schools.
A line from the Governor's School to Giles High School in neighboring Giles County is complete. But Bob Lilly, representing Giles, said the system is interested in the wireless network because of the monthly phone line costs.
Giles rewired its schools for computers during the summer, Lilly said. "We pulled cables into every classroom and every closet, just about," he said. Each classroom will have five computer outlets.
"The access is kind of slow," he said. "We're looking forward to getting hooked up over here to speed it up."
Lilly said a Giles history teacher is working on a project to have students code historical information about the county for computer access.
Besides Pulaski and Giles counties, the Governor's School has drawn half-day commuter students from Wythe, Bland, Smyth, Floyd, Grayson and Carroll counties and the city of Galax.
School systems can join its network directly through a special telephone line - and, later, perhaps through wireless technology - or through an Internet service provider where phone lines are impractical.
LENGTH: Medium: 62 linesby CNB