Videoconferencing allows long distance teaching at CHS
By Kathryn F. Pickard

Joyce Graham poses with the videoconferencing equipment at Coffeeville High School.

Open house was recently held at the new videoconferencing lab at Coffeeville High School. Implementing the lab at CHS was possible, thanks to an ACCESS Distance Learning Expansion Site grant of $93,656.

"This is the best thing the state has ever done," said Joyce Graham, facilitator of the Interactive Videoconferencing Course, or IVC, lab. "This will make every school in the state of Alabama equal."

Students at Coffeeville High School have been taking web based courses for several years now. Because of the small student population, there are not enough staff members to teach some elective courses, or to teach remedial courses if students need them. The web based courses allowed students to take electives not offered at CHS and to make up courses they did not pass the first time.

The IVC lab enables students to be a part of an actual class, via the Internet. Students can see their teacher, ask questions and interact.

Another difference between the online courses and IVC courses is that IVC courses must be scheduled while the teacher is teaching that course at another school. "So for example, our Spanish class is an IVC course, so all the students who want to take the IVC Spanish course are in here at one time. Students who take the online courses can fit it into the schedule around their other classes. I may have several courses being taken during one block," Graham explained.

About 25 IVC courses are offered.

Only one school out of every system was allowed to apply for the grant last year, and Coffeeville was chosen by Superintendent Gerald Stephens.

The grant paid for notebook computers for the students to use, a cart to store and charge the computers, two video cameras for the classroom, a projector, two television screens, a high powered microphone and a CODEC, which runs all the equipment as well as serving as a DVD player and VCR.

The assembly of the lab began in the fall and students began using it in December.

"The students love this. They can see their teacher and talk back and forth with her," Graham said.

The state's goal is to offer IVC courses in every high school in the state by 2010. The labs are paid for with the grant funds and cost the school or the system nothing.

"This makes us equal to any school in the state of Alabama as to what students can take," Graham added.

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