
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 8, 1993                   TAG: 9307080136
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Southwest bureau
DATELINE: ABINGDON                                LENGTH: Medium

FIBER-OPTICS GIFT TO AID EDUCATION LINES TO HELP LINK SCHOOLS IN NETWORK

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, announced a contribution Wednesday valued at more than $120,000 by United Telephone toward linking two high schools and a community college in what will eventually become the Southwest Virginia Telecommunications Network.

United will install fiber-optic lines to Virginia High School in Bristol, Abingdon High School and Virginia Highlands Community College in Abingdon by 1994. It will provide line service among the three educational institutions at no charge for one academic year.

It will also make a $15,000 donation toward the Southwest Virginia Education and Training Network Inc., set up to plan and administer the project. Boucher is seeking federal funds from a variety of agencies for the nonprofit organization, and private funds to match them.

The lines will allow the three institutions in Washington County and Bristol to experiment with interactive classrooms and shared programming.

"We view these linkages as a demonstration project and invite educators from throughout Southwest Virginia to gain experience with the capabilities of the fiber-optic network and prepare course materials in anticipation of their schools being linked to the network as well," Boucher said.

In May, Boucher announced that C&P Telephone was providing fiber-optic links to two Lee County high schools and Mountain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap. That was part of a plan unveiled by C&P on Wednesday to to connect public schools to state colleges and universities statewide via fiber-optic phone lines so they could have interactive, televised classes.

"Our goal is to provide linkages to the high schools, community colleges and four-year colleges throughout the 9th District for distance learning and electronic classrooms using interactive television," Boucher said.

"Through this medium, a teacher in a central location can interact with students in a variety of distant classrooms, and the students in each of those classrooms can also interact with each other."

by CNB