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

DATE: THURSDAY, October 6, 1994                   TAG: 9410060016
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-12   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN                                 LENGTH: Medium

GOVERNOR'S SCHOOL GETS COMMUNICATIONS GRANT

The program, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, would also link all the schools to the Internet telecommunications system and provide access to libraries and schools across the country and even in other countries.

The NASA grant is not in money but in hardware and technical services that will be used to set up a computer link over telephone lines, allowing other schools access to some of the advanced computer programs at the Governor's School.

A computer line from the Governor's School to a science classroom at Pulaski County High School already has been set up on an experimental basis. The Governor's School is located on the Pulaski County High School campus.

It will take telephone lines to link its computers with schools in Giles, Floyd, Bland, Carroll, Wythe and Smyth counties and the city of Galax. But, with the hardware being offered by NASA, low-speed leased lines can be used instead of the advanced fiber-optic lines required for computer links to the Internet under other programs.

The schools in Southwest Virginia could not afford fiber-optic lines.

A line is also planned to Dublin Elementary School for a demonstration school in science and math started this year. The demonstration school was set up to see if students with early exposure to math and science will do better in those subjects in later years.

The telephone line costs to schools that take advantage of the NASA program have not been worked out yet.

The program was outlined to the Governor's School board last month by Gary Warren, a NASA engineer at Langley Air Force Base.