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Show District Media Specialist Todd Stubbs, left, demonstrates Telelearning computer system for State. Superintendent of Public Instruction Leland Burningham in Panguitch during recent program. Telelearning District Reality TROPIC "Telelearning" is now a reality in Garfield County schools and the new program promises to open up vast new educational op portunities for area students. Visiting Bryce Valley High School March 28 for a demonstration were Kenneth Neal, state specialist in media; Dean Bradshaw, state specialist in media production , arid Kerry Nelson, senior state office specialist over small schools. The three made a follow-up trip to Tropic to observe the functioning of the system after state superin tendent of pubic education Leland Bumingham's earlier visit to assess the program. Developed by the district's electronic media specialist, Todd Stubbs in 1982, the project has been funded by a grant from the Utah Office of Education. Tested for the first time during last month's school board meeting to demonstrate to school board members and to the public the flexibility of the system, it is now in use in the district. The "telelearning" network consists of microcomputer generated graphics transmitted over standard telephone lines, ex plains Stubbs. When combined with tele-conferencing, the long distance "blackboard" permits the same class to be taught at several different locations. Such a network, he expects to prove, can be both a valuable resource and an economical solution to the needs of smaller high schools. Stubbs describes the network thus: "A telelearning center is a classroom that includes a portable conference telephone and a microcomputer graphics transceiver as its principal pieces of equipment. Several telelearning centers are then tied to each other via two long distance conference telephone lines, one line for the voice communications and the other for graphic data transmission. "The microcomputer graphics transceiver is made up of an onscreen digitizer connected to a standard microcomputer which in turn is connected to a modem, a microcomputer telephone link. "The on-screen digitizer or "screen pen" sends information to the microcomputer about its location on the screen which the microcomputer then translates into plotted points on the screen or line graphics, making it an electronic equivalent to the chalkboard. "This graphic data is then sent over telephone lines by means of the modem to other stations' microcomputers which translate it (Continued on Page 2) Telelearning (Continued from Page 1) into the same graphics on their screens. Any station in the network can become the Teleteaching Station by loading the "teaching station program" onto that station's microcomputer. "When all microcomputers are connected by conference lines, the graphic capability becomes just as interactive as the voice line communication. "Putting it in simpler terms" he said, "the teacher may communicate verbally and graphically with the students at any location and all stations will both see and hear it." Currently high schoolers are participating in a trigonometry class via telelearning. Instructor is Max Rose, Dixie College in St. George, who teaches the class on a daily basis. Still somewhat experimental, the program is being improved each day. Stubbs is still in the process of programming software to make the program more efficient. The original program was developed in BASIC (Beginning All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) and is now being translated into a faster, more efficient machine language program. Original grant funds came to a total of $40,000 to develop the program. Additional grant funds are now being sought to refine it and Stubbs says that the more the program is used, the more cost-efficient it becomes. A similar program is in use in the northern part of the state, but Stubbs feels the district's program is far more flexible and adaptable to the particular needs of the rural areas. |