With former Governor Mark Warner and Virginia Secretary of Technology
Aneesh Chopra visiting The Prizery on Friday morning, along with school
superintendents from 22 divisions and two cities, plans for work by the
Center for Rural Education and Economic Development (CREED)at the
Southern Virginia Higher Education Center (SVHEC)were revealed. The
area served by CREED is a large area of Virginia, including the
counties and cites from Patrick County to the west to Sussex County in
the east and up to Buckingham County northward.
CREED recognizes the powerful regional opportunity provided by the 700
mile broadband network built and managed by the Mid-Atlantic Broadband
Cooperative (MBC) and plans to use MBC's network as a core foundation
to give students, teachers, business owners and other citizens a new
leading technology edge, Ted Bennett, Executive Director of the SVHEC
points out.
Phase One of the project involves building a private education network
to serve the schools and higher education institutions in the 22
county, two city region by providing them with "last mile" broadband
connections at much lower costs. This network, called the Southern
Virginia Education Network (SVEN) will make possible distance learning
and classroom participation in remote classroom locations and allow for
the teaching, training and retention of educators in rural areas. Most
importantly, it allows students to become more globally competitive
through the availability of a variety of new  offerings such as
Advanced Placement (AP) courses and college classes.
As a representative of Sussex County schools pointed out, "this project
will open doors for students stuck in poverty" and a Brunswick County
official agreed saying he felt it would give their students an
opportunity "to expand their horizons." A Dinwidde County official
noted that "teachers have become frustrated when systems don't work."
Warner told those gathered that ten years ago people were talking about
distant learning, "now they are actually doing it," he reminded his
listeners. But he also noted that the number of graduates in computer
science has dropped and jobs are being outsourced simply because there
are not enough qualified people to supply the demand. He added that
rural kids drop out of school disproportinately to those in larger
areas. "We have to worry that kids are so often turned off to math and
science in Middle School."
But Halifax County Superintendent of Schools Paul Stapleton, who serves
as chairman of CREED, said the project "gives our children the first
line advantage of doing the same thing as larger areas with the same
opportunities, making their dreams come alive."
During the SVEN presentation Friday morning network demonstrations were
made with NASA representative Chris Giersch talking live with Halifax
County students from the Smart Lab at the Middle School and remotely
with students at Charham Middle School.
Another demonstration featured Chinese/ ESL (English as a Second
Language) teacher Xin Wang teaching from the Southern Virginia Higher
Education Center and the final demonstration featured wireless dialogue
with Ben Davenport from his home near Smith Mountain Lake.
The second phase of the CREED project involves giving private internet
service providers the opportunity to leverage MBC's infrastucture to
provide reliable, high speed cost effective broadband service to homes
and businesses in the region. Several private providers, including Pure
Internet owner Kelly Shaw, was one of the presenters during an earlier
Round Table discussion with Warner and Chopra present for that also.
One important factor pointed out by the speakers was simply that local
governments need to understand the importance of the broadband
opportunity and to be willing to support it financially since it will
help to revitalize the economy of the region.
Friday's session had been scheduled as the time for the final report
from the Broadband Roundtable which had been charged in June by
Governor Tim Kaine with developing a last mile telecommunications blue
print to advance the goal of ensuring broadband access for every
Virginia business, Kaine named former Governor Mark Warner and
Secretary of Technology Chopra to led the group.