Southern Utah University will play a major role in bringing new educational opportunities to rural central and southern Utah communities via telecommunications under the terms of a recently announced $3,343,738 technology challenge grant.

The "Challenge Grant for Technology in Education" was awarded to the Southeast Education Service Center (SESC) in Price, the lead agency in a consortium that includes SUU as a key partner.The grant is one of only 19 awarded nationally. The grant program will eventually impact more than 400,000 students nationally. The Utah consortium will contribute by delivering revised-curriculum offerings on such themes as American Indian cultures, Western history, geology and paleontology to the Internet. Additionally, the grant will increase the access of rural Utah students to the Internet.

The grant's title is "State of Utah Resources Web," (SURWEB).

One element of the project is utilizing local, state, and electronic resources to develop new instructional units. Another element will be creating access to the information by building on existing regional and state electronic networks.

Also in the consortium are five national parks in Utah; the Utah State Parks System; the Utah State Office of Education; Dinosaur National Monument; Indian Councils/Agencies; Far West Laboratory; Novell, Inc.; Office of Museum Services; four regional educational service centers; US WEST; and the Utah Education Network. Each member will contribute in different ways.

"SUU will be integrally involved in meeting one of the major goals of the program, providing staff development," said Lana Johnson, SUU assistant dean of continuing education.

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"Our role will be to help train teachers to access and utilize the resources of the internet to create learning programs. We will also teach teachers to create their own resources for dissemination on-line to the internet. The university's technical production laboratories will be available to assist in the production of World Wide Web resources.

"When this project is completed, the new web will provide better access in rural areas to the internet, and it will also expose the internet users to Utah historical, ethnic and geological information," Johnson said.

SUU, SESC, and Far West Laboratory were the primary participants in preparation of the grant application, according to Johnson. Major collaboration of public and private parties was a mandate within the grant application guidelines. Some 530 grant applications were received nationally.

"Because only 19 projects were selected," they are certain to be closely monitored and to receive attention nationally," Johnson said. For more information: Johnson 1-801-586-7756.

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