Distance-Learning Program Described As 'State Of The Art'

Linda Erwin, director of school partnerships for the Niswonger Foundation, said the distance-learning partnership with the Bristol school system "is really state of the art."

With help from the foundation, Bristol has been sharing courses with other schools in Carter, Johnson, Sullivan and Hawkins counties for two years now, she said.

"Bristol oversees it," she said.

Ervin differentiated distance learning from e-learning, explaining that distance learning involves "real time, live" audio and video interaction between students in one location and a teacher at another location.

Each classroom has two large video screens that can be split to show a teacher and something else, perhaps a graph, or an illustration. Ervin said e-learning usually refers to courses offered online, with interaction between the student and teacher typically occuring via e-mail.
Ervin said the Niswonger Foundation learned from the Rhea and Scott County schools that grants for distance learning were available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. However, most school systems could not afford the required 50 percent match to get the grants.

In a number of cases, "The Niswonger Foundation supplied the match," and provided additional help, including hardware, Ervin said.

By putting up $300,000 of its own money, she said, the Niswonger Foundation helped several schools get a total of $1.2 million in grants. She said Cocke and Carter counties are currently applying for USDA grants.

If those grants come through, she said, a total of 18 high schools will be participating in what is now called the East Tennessee Distance Learning Consortium.

Members of the consortium offer "their strong courses" to other member schools that need them. For example, she said, "Greene County needed another language" to offer students, "and Hawkins County had an excellent French teacher."

Hawkins County students take advanced calculus via distance learning from a teacher in the Greene County system, she said.

She said Unicoi County "has an amazing German language teacher," and several systems are considering offering that class next year."

It is programs such as these that former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist, head of the SCORE Initiative, said he would like to publicize statewide as "promising" practices.

Ervin said the difference between the East Tennessee consortium and others that might offer classes taught, for example, in Florida, is that local systems can be assured that locally-taught courses all meet Tennessee requirements.

She said e-learning courses work better when a student is home-bound, or needs another class to graduate, or is in a "zero-tolerance" situation and cannot attend school, she said.

E-learning also works well for "credit recovery," Ervin said. That is, making up a course, or for advanced students who can handle another course in their spare time, broadening their education and in the process perhaps improving their grade point average.

She said several students take government and economics courses via e-learning in their after-school hours, so that they can have time during the school day to take band or chorus.