Time Warner Cable, C-SPAN and Project VIEW of the Schenectady City School District are awarded Cable in the Classroom Demonstration Project Grant.

Schenectady, NY - Time Warner Cable (Albany Division), FC-SPAN and Project VIEW of the Schenectady City School District have been selected to develop and implement a Cable in the Classroom Demonstration Project.  The award comes with a $65,000 grant from Cable In the Classroom to support project activities.  The project will create and develop a unique interactive learning and videoconference program model utilizing the educational and public affairs resources of the C-SPAN Network.  The completed model will be available for classrooms nationwide.  Planning and development are underway.

The CIC Demonstration Project will create a template for providing point-to-point videoconference opportunities with C-SPAN and help students understand and access the resources that are available to them through C-SPAN.  Project VIEW, a five year Federal Technology Innovation Challenge Grant offers an established infrastructure, training model and paradigm.  Following VIEW's model, master teachers will be selected to develop the project, which will include an interactive content-rich videoconference built to incorporate the wealth of C-SPAN resources.  A series of eight interactive videoconference programs will be developed and implemented, integrating all the disciplines with a strong emphasis on Social Studies.

"This is an extraordinary opportunity for Project VIEW and our partners to expand our reach and continue to break the classroom barriers," said Dr. John Falco, Project Director of Project VIEW.  "We have successfully trained hundreds of teachers to develop and integrate curriculum as well as use the technology. With this program, we continue to do that.  We are changing the way we teach and learn."

Each of the CIC Demonstration Project partners bring unique skills and an exceptional level of expertise to the project.  Beginning its third funding year, Project VIEW haw worked with nationally recognized content providers and has trained hundreds of teachers to develop curriculum and integrate videoconferencing into the curriculum.

"We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to rely on the strength of our established partnerships with some of the best resources in educational programming and interactive education technologies," said Peter M. Taubkin, Vice President, Government Relations & Public Affairs for Time Warner Cable's Albany Division.  "Our past successes individually with the C-SPAN Networks and the Schenectady City School District have brought us a blueprint for what we believe can serve as a model," added Taubkin.

Time Warner Cable, the CIC Demonstration Project Director, operates one f the most sophisticated cable systems in the nation.  Time Warner has an established history of partnering with area educational institutions to successfully implement and maintain distance-learning and teacher training tool to more than 379 schools in the communities they serve.  Time Warner will provide the needed bandwidth through Road Runner high speed Internet service.

The completed projects will be available to classrooms through the use of interactive videoconferencing and digitally archived Internet resources.  The projects will include an array of explorations and will enable students and teachers to conduct real-time interview and discussions with C-SPAN guests including policy experts, politicians, authors, and journalists.

C-SPAN offers a wide variety of programming from its three television networks, seven websites, extensive online archives as well as videotape archives.  Current programming includes coverage of the U.S.House and Senate, congressional hearings, White House events, Pentagon briefings, speeches by U.S. Supreme Court Justices, over 100 Campaign 2002 debates, and over 50 hours of book and author programming each weekend.  C-SPAN in the Classroom is a free service for teachers that provides information, lessons and activities for teaching and learning with the Network's programming and Internet resources.

"Through C-SPAN in the Classroom and the C-SPAN School Bus, we are constantly engaged in a variety of projects with our partners in cable and education.  This is an opportunity with Time Warner and Project VIEW, which allows us to take it to the next level, to work in a sustained, focused project with the time and resourced necessary to make it a success," said Meg Steele, Manager of Education at C-SPAN.  "We want educators and students nationwide to know how C-SPAN can be used to teach and learn.  This project offers an outstanding platform, with expert partners."

Teachers nationwide will learn about the CIC Demonstration Project through the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS), Project VIEW and C-SPAN in the Classroom.