ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 19, 1997 TAG: 9702190078
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
It may be a different kind of road, but a ribbon-cutting is still planned for 4:30 p.m. today to open the Information Superhighway that Rep. Rick Boucher has helped to launch from the Southwest Virginia Governor's School.
Boucher, an Abingdon Democrat, will head a list of speakers at the Governor's School on the Pulaski County High School campus, as the school officially opens its NASA-sponsored education connection to the Internet.
It was Boucher who worked to get the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to help fund and connect a T-1 line to the Governor's School to carry computer data. The connection has been used not only by students who commute to the school for advanced courses in math, science and technology, but also to help connect schools in other counties to the Internet.
It proved too costly for the school systems that send high school juniors and seniors to the Governor's School to obtain their own telephone line to handle computer communications, and pay the monthly charges on it. Wireless technology has proved to be a way to bridge the gap.
The wireless process involves beaming the computer signal to receiving dishes at schools in surrounding counties such as Giles and Carroll. As long as there are no mountains or other obstacles in the way, the Governor's School connection can spin off a signal to which hundreds of computers in a single school system can also be attached.
The plan over time is to make these connections to all the participating school systems, including Smyth, Wythe and Bland counties and the city of Galax, and perhaps beyond. Pulaski County, which pioneered the wireless concept in Southwest Virginia, is already connected. Pulaski County High School is in the same location as the Governor's School, so a connecting line there was no problem.
Boucher has been a leader in getting educational institutions connected electronically, not only for Internet access but in communications between schools and colleges and the prospect of courses taught in one location being televised to another.
What this new technology will mean to Southwest Virginia in education and other areas will be discussed by Boucher and others at today's ceremony.
LENGTH: Short : 49 linesby CNB