PANOLA COLLEGE RECEIVES COMPETITIVE TIF GRANT

Panola College has just received a highly competitive grant for $194,494 from the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF) Board. The College intends to use the funding to make distance learning studies and college life a little bit easier through the use of new technologies. The College plans to create a complete distance learning package by providing online registration, online grade reporting, online developmental courses, streaming video and audio for web pages, and kiosks off-campus for convenient, online registration for the public. The kiosks will be placed in the public school districts served by the College so that online registration can occur at those locations. Two more kiosks will be placed locally so that citizens can walk up and register, having access to College registration and the Internet.

Not only should potential and current students benefit from this grant initiative, the staff will receive technical and practical training on the streaming video and other distance teaching techniques and equipment. The College aims to develop content for distance learning courses in the areas of math,reading, and writing that will be available throughout Texas community and technical colleges. This project is the first complete package step toward Panola College offering full programs and certificates online.

"TIF is happy to fund this project, headed up by Panola College," said Sam Tessen, the Executive Director of TIF. "The project proposes to put together a complete package for distance learning from registration off-campus to taking courses at a distant location. It will be interesting to see if enrollment in online courses increases due to increased accessibility. The course development will also be a valuable tool for other colleges and schools to use in their content development.

Since its creation by the 74^th Legislature in 1995, TIF has awarded approximately $684 million in grants to its four constituent groups- public schools, libraries, institutions of higher education, and public, not-for-profit healthcare facilities. The agency receives approximately $150 million per year in revenues from telecommunications assessments to disburse over a ten-year period.