When the bell rings and class begins, the Union County students listen to pronunciations and practice their tenses along with the Bibb County students, thanks to an interactive, two-way video link between the schools. The teacher, located at Central High, can answer a Union County student's question on verb conjugation without missing a beat, as voice-activated cameras and monitors keep everyone in touch, visually and audibly.
Every day, similar distance learning classes take place in hundreds of schools, colleges and universities throughout Georgia. In several major hospitals, doctors are also using the statewide video network to diagnose and treat patients located miles away in rural areas where medical specialists, let alone general practitioners, can be hard to come by.
Distance learning and telemedicine have been practiced for a while now in a growing number of locations throughout the United States, but never on a scale that matches the state of Georgia. The Georgia Statewide Academic and Medical System (GSAMS) is considered the world's largest public two-way video network, with nearly 200 schools and hospitals linked together, creating a virtual educational and medical community throughout Georgia.
Using funds from an overbilling settlement between the state and the telephone company BellSouth, Georgia has invested $50 million since 1992 in the video network for the purpose of equalizing educational and healthcare opportunities in all areas of the state.
George Christenberry, deputy commissioner of the Telecommunications Division for the Department of Administrative Services (DOAS), said cost and functionality were key objectives for GSAMS. "The network has to provide a reasonably priced service and, at the same time, use technology that can go anywhere in the state. In other words, we need a low-cost technology that can be used in rural areas now, not in five years," he explained.
Working with BellSouth and more than 30 independent telephone companies that provide services in Georgia, the state was able to offer interested academic and medical institutions access to GSAMS for only $500 per month. Actual operational costs are $1,000 per month, but the state is subsidizing half of the costs at each site for two years. Still, that's far below the $4,000-$5,000 monthly fee per site some other states are paying for their video networks, according to Christenberry.
The state also has paid each institution's equipment costs, which average between $90,000 and $100,000 per site for installation of monitors, cameras, sound equipment, control consoles and other electronic technology.
With operational costs far below the average salary for a teacher or professor, educational institutions are taking advantage of what GSAMS has to offer. Last year, with just 100 sites hooked up, the system handled more than 4,000 multi-point conferences and sessions. For 1995, the numbers will be significantly higher.
DISTANCE LEARNING
The vast majority of GSAMS sites in Georgia are related in some way to distance learning. In 1990, the state began testing distance learning with several pilot projects involving state colleges. Beginning in 1992, GSAMS has been phased into operation at a mix of K-12 schools, as well as every public college, university, technical school and adult education institution in the state.
In the K-12 sector, the majority of sites have been concentrated at the high school level. Since the state could not afford to provide every school with a site, it solicited requests for proposals to develop a distance learning program from the more than 1,800 schools.
According to Dr. Billie Sherrod, coordinator for distance learning at the Department of Education, preference was given to schools with something to offer GSAMS, in addition to having a compelling need for distance learning. "I'm a strong believer that we can't run a distance learning system with a lot of sites that have only needs," she said.
While the individual sites chosen to use GSAMS are given autonomy regarding the courses they offer, the majority of classes are for advanced learning. Courses for foreign languages, advanced mathematics and science top the list, while others include journalism, art, history and English. In addition, the Department of Education offers teachers special training courses and conducts meetings over GSAMS.
ZOO ATLANTA
A major source of interactive educational programming originates from Zoo Atlanta. For many students in Georgia, the series of live video programs delivered regularly by zoo staff is their first exposure to animal life at a zoo. According to Zoo Atlanta's Distance Learning Coordinator Kelly Thomas, the programs emphasize an interactive learning experience, with children from several schools participating in lively debates and mock newscasts on environmental issues.
Valdosta State University, located in Southeastern Georgia, uses GSAMS to offer graduate level courses to students who live too far away to make commuting feasible. Every week, between 12 and 15 courses are taught over GSAMS by instructors from the university. Each course reaches three to five sites and is usually taught in the evening.
The typical GSAMS classroom is equipped with four large-screen TV monitors - two in the back of the class and two in the front - where a camera, VCR and console control are also located. Other equipment includes a document camera, fax machine and video and audio compression equipment. Room microphones are linked to voice-activated cameras, so that teachers can always see who is talking. While as many as seven classes can be linked together at one time, the average is usually less.
By all accounts, GSAMS has provided tremendous benefits to students and teachers. Most importantly, it gives students attending rural schools and colleges access to a much richer, diverse curriculum. As Sherrod pointed out, the problem in the past wasn't that rural schools lacked the funds to hire a teacher for advanced courses, they just couldn't find one willing to come and teach at their school. GSAMS solves that problem.
Bob Reese, director of technical services at Bibb County Public Schools mentioned that GSAMS allows students of different socioeconomic backgrounds to communicate. "A kid in metro-Atlanta can talk with a student from Bainbridge, in rural, Southwestern Georgia, and find out what kind of jobs they have after school and what they do on a Friday night," he said.
But building and managing a distance learning network of this size has had its share of problems. Christenberry remarked that while the video quality has remained excellent, sound has been a problem because the acoustics vary from class to class. Also, background noises - such as air conditioning compressors - can easily interfere with a distance learning session.
Schools have also struggled with the logistical hassle of trying to figure out how to coordinate class times, so that bells don't go off in the middle of a session involving several schools. But the biggest issue is choosing the right course and teacher for distance learning. At minimum, teachers have to learn to adjust their delivery. "Straight lectures don't work," said Dr. Luck Watson, director of technology for Valdosta State University. Watson and others believe that the best courses are those that fully involve students, are entertaining to some extent, and are well-prepared by the teachers.
TELEMEDICINE
Smaller in scale, but growing in size, telemedicine is the other cornerstone to the GSAMS network. Telemedicine began as a pilot project at seven sites and is now in full operation at eight. By early 1995, GSAMS will be expanded to a total of 57 hospitals and one mobile van, which will provide correctional facilities with access to telemedicine.
Despite the skepticism over telemedicine, results from Georgia's pilot project have shown that 80 percent of patients receiving remote diagnosis via telemedicine were able to remain in their local hospitals, which provided a $500-per-day savings per patient bed. Telemedicine has also reduced travel time for both patients and doctors.
The requirements of telemedicine are similar to distance learning, except for two differences. First, telemedicine video requires more bandwidth than distance learning. Second, medical equipment has to be adapted so that physicians and medical specialists can effectively diagnose patients at a remote location. This has worked well enough so that telemedicine is used in Georgia for numerous specialities, including cardiology, dermatology, neurology and ophthalmology.
In fact, physicians say telemedicine permits them to do almost everything except touch their patients electronically. But even the limitations of touch will be overcome in the near future as tactile electronic gloves with sensors are developed. Then, a physician at a remote rural site will wear such a glove while examining a patient. The medical specialist at the main or hub site will wear a similar glove that will permit the sense of touch to be electronically conveyed.
FUNDING WINDFALL
In 1990, when distance learning and telemedicine in Georgia were in their infancy, an investigation by the state's Public Service Commission determined that BellSouth - the regional Bell telephone company - had been unintentionally overbilling customers in several states, including Georgia.
The amount owed to BellSouth's customers in Georgia totaled $140 million, of which half was rebated back to individuals and businesses. Meanwhile, Christenberry's Telecommunications Division was recommending to Gov. Zell Miller that the state expand its use of distance learning and redirect the leftover funds to the program.
With strong backing from the governor, the state passed legislation in 1992 that established a multi-agency board to oversee implementation of GSAMS, provided $50 million from the BellSouth settlement to build the network and set aside another $23 million, which has now been earmarked for distance learning and telemedicine in 1995. While the source of GSAMS funds was unique, Christenberry is quick to point out that if it didn't exist, his department would have been out looking for another source.
Will GSAMS expand beyond distance learning and telemedicine? The legislation was written so that the Georgia state government can't create applications that might compete with something the private sector could deliver. However, the state clearly sees the potential for using GSAMS as an economic tool. At the same time, other educational and nonprofit organizations are eligible to participate on the network, but without the state subsidy. This would allow nonprofit hospitals, private colleges and schools to use the system and expand its usefulness.
With the ability to grow to 400 sites comfortably, GSAMS has a way to go before reaching capacity based on the technology it currently uses. Another $23 million can't hurt either. That's good news for many Georgians, including Sherrod, who said she has a growing list of schools that would love to participate in the distance learning program.
Affordable, quality technology has been the driving force behind the development of the Georgia Statewide Academic and Medical System. Thanks to improvements in video compression technology, the state was able to deploy GSAMS for distance learning over half a T-1, or 12 telephone lines. The telemedicine portion of the network, which requires greater bandwidth, uses a full T-1 (24 telephone lines). By using this bandwidth, any location within the state can be reached by GSAMS using the existing infrastructure.
To ensure that all possible locations in Georgia could access GSAMS, the state partnered with numerous telephone and telecommunications vendors to provide the necessary equipment and services. For example, Georgia's telephone service consists of five LATAs (Local Access and Transport Areas), which meant that the state had to work with a host of local carriers serving each LATA - as well as long distance vendors AT&T; and Sprint - in order to bridge the LATA boundaries with inter-exchange service.
For GSAMS to work, the state required that the vendors provide an automated scheduling system so that the system could be managed efficiently. The system allows teachers to fax in their schedules to DOAS, which programs the system to link up the chosen sites at the chosen time. The teachers do not have to engage in making the various connections.
The state also required the vendors to provide a flat billing structure for any location in the state, a point-to-point or multi-point environment and the capability of any site to talk to any other site.
Each GSAMS site is equipped with video and audio compression equipment from Compression Laboratories Inc. of San Jose, Calif.
