Many students come to Radford every year for various reasons. Some students, like myself, prefer Radford because it isn't a very large school. I like having small classes and not being just one student out of a lecture of 300, which is common at larger schools.

There are downfalls to attending a smaller school, though. Sometimes there aren't enough students to allow for a certain course to be offered. When that is the case, should students who need a special course transfer to another school or change their majors to something that can be completed at Radford? The answer is to bring distance learning to Radford. With distance learning, a student could attend a lecture at another school without ever leaving the RU campus.

One form of distance learning is teleconferencing. With teleconferencing, there is a monitor and camera set up in a classroom at one location, and there is another camera and monitor at another location. If you were a professor using teleconferencing, you could teach a lecture to the classroom you are in and to someone else in the world. You would be able to see another student or an entire class in the monitor while they watched you in their monitor. It is very similar to live TV, but you can talk and communicate to the people on the other side.

Another form of distance education involves use of computers. The professor would give their lecture online for students. Advantages to this are chat rooms, bulletin boards, lecture notes and syllabi available online in a virtual classroom. Students could also talk to one another in a chat room. The professor can observe what their students are doing while they are attending class. For example, the professor would see if one student entered a chat room with other students but never added any comments or questions. The professor then might ask the student if they understand the material or if they need extra help.

Currently, there are two rooms at Radford equipped for distance learning. These are Young 201 and 205. In the Fall 2000 semester, the new Waldron building will have two distance-learning rooms also. Radford currently uses the teleconferencing with Thomas Center for Advanced Studies at Virginia Western Community college and at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center in Abingdon. Several members of the Radford staff are using the Web for distance learning or to enhance standard classes. In the future you could attend a lecture at Harvard while someone sitting next to you learned from MIT without ever leaving the comfort and beauty of RU.