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

DATE: THURSDAY, July 21, 1994                   TAG: 9407210074
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: By RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN                                 LENGTH: Medium

GRANT TO AID NRCC 'DISTANCE LEARNING'

Time and travel will become less of a hindrance to rural community college students, thanks in part to a $74,000 grant to New River Community College.

The money - a ``Funds for Excellence'' grant from the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia - will establish the Rural Center for Distance Education at the school.

The center will teach community college faculty and staff members how to use distance-learning technology - including televised lectures and computers - to put college courses within reach of rural dwellers.

The old model of education has been, ``You come to us to get it,'' said Tom Wilkinson, New River's director of learning resources and instructional technology and the person who will direct the Rural Center project. ``Now, we're taking the education out to you.''

Ten central and Southwest Virginia community colleges will take part in the project. They include Virginia Western, Wytheville, Mountain Empire, Southwest Virginia, Virginia Highlands and New River community colleges.

What Wilkinson calls ``timebound'' students - those whose work or home schedules make it hard for them to attend traditional classes - make up the biggest distance-learning market. New River and other schools now offer for-credit courses via television - to remote sites or directly to homes via cable TV or Blue Ridge Public Television - and even on videotape, so students can arrange their ``class time'' around their schedules, instead of the other way around. The idea, Wilkinson said, is to increase accessibility.

For example, parents of young children now can ``go to class'' at home after the kids are tucked in bed by popping a tape into the VCR or a disc into the computer. Students confer with instructors via telephone or, sometimes, via computer E-mail.

For ``spacebound'' students - those who live far away from the actual college classroom - televised classes can be beamed via satellite or microwave to several remote sites, such as local public schools. Current technology can allow full-motion, two-way video between students and teachers.

Distance learning apparently is popular. When New River started offering distance-education classes in the mid 1980s, a few dozen students were signed up, Wilkinson said. The enrollment now is more than 1,000 and growing. The school offers three dozen ``telecourses'' to distance learners, from computer classes to courses in child psychology, business and marketing.

``The market is there for those who have a need and can't come to the campus,'' Wilkinson said.

Under the Rural Center for Distance Education project, community college educators will get specialized training in development and delivery of distance-education courses using various types of instructional technology. They then will serve as distance-education mentors for their colleagues. The project will run for two years.

by CNB