Plains schools create video classing to share costs

BURLINGTON – Delsi Steach stands at the front of her empty classroom with her notes, her assignments, and her words. She begins Spanish class, which at first glance may look like she's talking to no one. In fact, she's reaching students up to 100 miles away.

"Right now, I carry 10 different school districts," said Steach, a Spanish teacher.

Her classroom in Burlington is furnished with advanced video conferencing technology. She uses a camera, microphone and document reader to communicate with students in rooms equipped with a swiveling camera Steach can control and hypersensitive microphones.

Steach and her students can see each other on televisions and speak with a level of instantaneous response. Her monitor can be switched to watch all the rooms at once.

"After the class gets started and the kids are there, it's just the same interaction," said Steach. "They're my kids, and it's not about the technology."

The technology was provided by East Central Board of Cooperative Educational Services or BOCES. East Central BOCES is made up of 21 school districts on the Eastern Plains along Interstate 70. The schools received a grant to create this video classing system to share resources.

"I teach to schools that wouldn't be able to hire a Spanish teacher otherwise," said Steach.

These are school districts that don't have many resources. These are districts like Bethune.

"I employ 17 certified staff, pre-K through 12, and we have 123 students," said Shila Adolf, superintendent of Bethune schools.

Bethune calls itself "the best little school" in Colorado. Adolph says her district isn't big enough to support a Spanish teacher or many other specialty teachers. Video classing allows one teacher's salary to be paid for, in essence, by a number of districts together.

"What we try to do is share resources. This enables us to do it without transporting kids anywhere," said Adolf. "We really care about providing a good quality education for our kids. And, when I say our kids, plains kids – kids that deserve a chance, but because of where they live shouldn't limit them on what access they have to education."

Adolf says video classing allows her to expand her curriculum tremendously.

"Now, we have kids taking college math, college English, leaving here with some credits all ready to go on to universities," said Adolf.

The video classing started last school year. It is a system that requires of a lot information transfer. The Internet cannot provide a fast enough connection. The whole thing was made possible by fiber-optic lines laid along I-70.

The Colorado Department of Transportation has access to some of those lines and it leased two tiny fibers to the East Central BOCES.

"It's one-tenth the diameter of a human hair and there's two of them – one for transmit and one for receive," said Pat Burns. Burns is the vice president of Information Technology at Colorado State University. Burns helped the East Central BOCES put all the pieces together to create a video classing network.

"The fiber is the key. This is not just broadband network. It's a next generation network," said Burns. "It runs at a billion bits per second, which is what you need for the almost instantaneous interactivity for multi-point video conferencing."

Steach says she doesn't miss a beat chatting with students from Burlington to Bennett to Cheyenne Wells.

"When we're in the middle of class, I don't know that I'm on camera," said Steach.

Emma Richardson is the Distance Learning Coordinator for East Central BOCES. Richardson says the "speed of light" connection provided by the fiber-optics allows students to feel as if they are in the same room.

"Especially in foreign language," said Richardson. "Because if you don't have interaction and you aren't made to talk in a classroom setting, you just don't learn it as well."

Matt Seamans is a freshman in Bethune. He says he was hesitant at first to take Spanish via video.

"It took a while, yeah. I mean you had to get used to having all the other students and the teacher in a whole other room," said Seamans.

Steach has students complete workbooks in class, but she limits the written work.

"A lot of it's oral because I can't very well walk between them and check on their papers," she said.

The written work that is turned in is faxed to her classroom. Usually, teachers on their free hours act as proxies for Steach to handle discipline or other logistical issues in the classroom without having to know anything about Spanish. Still, Steach says she can see if people are cheating on tests through the cameras.

"I mean it works pretty well, just like another class," said Seamans.

Richardson says the video classing equipment also allows districts to pool resources for teacher training and for meetings involving teachers and administrators.

"They are getting the collaboration of their peers they normally don't see," said Richardson.

Burns says it could change rural schools forever.

"You could look into the eyes of students and see what impact it made, literally you could do that via videoconferencing," said Burns. "It makes me feel like I was contributing to the state of Colorado, which is what I should be doing as a CSU employee."

The East Central BOCES is working to expand the fiber-optic connections. Burns says there is a 15 mile gap between their network and one in northeast Colorado. Burns says if they can make a connection, video classing can reach nearly half the state.

"It's OK," said Seamans. "I mean, I'm learning Spanish."

Seamans says he and other students would not have this opportunity if it wasn't for the fiber-optic connection and video conferencing technology.

"If you can't have a regular classroom setting, this is a great alternative," said Steach.