SRTC Unveils New Interactive Video Classroom
1/26/07
The Shelby Regional Training Center in Center, Texas, will be unveiling a new interactive video classroom on January 29, at 3:30 p.m., Dr. Joe Shannon , Associate Dean of Instruction and Director of Shelby College Operations for Panola College, announced today. Located in the Shelby Regional Training Center (SRTC) located at 678 Roughrider Drive, the classroom will enable Panola College students to receive live interactive classes from other locations.
Purchased by Panola College in conjunction with the Northeast Texas Consortium of Colleges and Universities (NETnet), the classroom is one of ten in the region to be unveiled. The additional classrooms, located from Angelina College in Lufkin to Paris Junior College and Texas A&M at Commerce, are being initiated throughout the month of January. The specialized equipment and installation is valued at approximately $50,000 per site.
Dr. Gregory Powell, Panola College President, states, “Panola College is a recognized leader in the delivery of distance education via online instruction and Interactive Television. We are pleased to be able to expand our offerings with the addition of this state-of-the-art distance learning classroom made possible by a generous grant from the Northeast Texas Consortium (NETnet).”
According to Ann Morris, Panola College Associate Dean of Distance Education, “The new classroom will allow the SRTC to bring additional educational opportunities to students. Panola has four new or relatively new ITV classrooms that send and receive classes in multiple locations maximizing our offerings and personnel. In fact, we’re already sending and receiving classes from this very ITV classroom.” Mrs. Morris added, “We’re very pleased that NETnet has helped make this possible.” The new interactive video classroom at SRTC replaces an older one that was located at the Shelby College Center.
The classrooms will enable students and faculty to share live video along with high resolution computer graphics between similarly equipped sites. Says Northeast Texas Consortium engineer Gordon Martin, “Each room can be remotely monitored with problems diagnosed from any desktop computer, assuring much greater reliability than some earlier video classrooms.” Along with a second engineer, David Nichols, Mr. Martin prepared the Shelby Regional Training Center site for the installation with the assistance of Mr. Steve McGee, Panola College Instruction Support for Distance Learning. The final system installation was completed by Visionality: Designs that Work, a Texas-based company.