Somewhere between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains, a country road exits the busy interstate and winds its way past the occasional abandoned farmhouse, through the sleepy Appalachian hills. This rural pocket of Southwest Virginia seems generations removed from any information superhighway.

But then the country road turns abruptly into the town of Blacksburg, where no sign of the information age could be more obvious than the URL -- http://www.bev.net -- prominently displayed on the town's municipal building.

Welcome to Blacksburg Electronic Village, where main street meets cyberspace.

For the past four years, Blacksburg has been engaged in a giant experiment to get the entire town online -- citizens, schools, local government, and community groups. The result has become a unique laboratory where researchers from a variety of disciplines are having a field day analyzing the impact of computer network technology on learning and living.

Blacksburg is not exactly a typical town. Home to Virginia Tech, the state's largest university, Blacksburg is a high-tech enclave in a rural setting of relative poverty and isolation. But the technological ripple effects of Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV) -- a cooperative effort between Virginia Tech, Bell Atlantic, and the town of Blacksburg -- are spreading throughout surrounding Montgomery County.

The county's school system is a prime beneficiary of this ripple effect. Today, all 21 schools in the 9,000-student district enjoy high-speed connections to the Internet, thanks in large part to the technological leverage provided by Virginia Tech and Bell Atlantic. Nine county schools are hooked up to T-1 lines, and the remainder are connected via ISDN, networking a total of more than 1,400 personal computers in the school system.

"Our charter is to get people connected, and schools are an important part of the community," says BEV's director, Andrew Michael Cohill. "BEV was able to get network access for Blacksburg-area schools much sooner than they would have been able to do it by themselves."

But it's not just the schools that are wired: Roughly half of Montgomery County's 75,000 residents are online, too, completing the school-community communication loop. Parents, teachers, administrators, and school board members regularly communicate with each other using e-mail. One board member even sends out an e-mail newsletter to more than 400 constituents.

As an incentive to get residents online, BEV offers free e-mail accounts to Blacksburg citizens, and public access to the network is available at no cost in several branches of the county library. The demand for online time is such that currently at least eight Internet service providers have set up shop in town and are doing a brisk business selling dial-up access.

Virginia Tech faculty, staff, and students -- who account for 30,000 of Blacksburg's 36,000 citizens -- can also get online by means of direct connections on campus or by using the university's modem pool to connect from home. But the truly lucky live in one of the six local apartment complexes that have been wired with direct T-1 Internet connections to Ethernet ports in the apartment units. About 70 businesses in town are hooked up the same way.

Meanwhile, information provided by the town government, schools, community organizations, churches, and more than 300 businesses can be accessed from a bevy of local web sites that are hosted on BEV's own web server and on 100 other web servers in the area.

BEV has brought the world to Blacksburg. But that's not all: Having inspired a critical mass of people to get online, it has also opened new channels of communication within the community. Indeed, this ambitious experiment in community networking is as much a project about people as it is about technology. And for schools throughout Montgomery County, that's good news.

Leveraging the network

"Three years ago, we had very few local-area networks in the school system, and there was no wide-area network," says Larry Arrington, the district's soft-spoken supervisor of technology. "Then Bell Atlantic came in and said, 'We'll give you four T-1 lines.'"

To make the best use of this technological windfall, the district drafted a technology plan, upgraded its local network infrastructure, and replaced its outdated personal computers with modern, powerful PCs and Macs. Today, the district employs a technology staff of 11 people, eight of whom spend all their time on maintenance.

The high-speed networking and new computers that are now in place are paying off in the classroom.

"BEV has given us the springboard -- almost a rocket launcher -- to go from," says Jon Utin, who teaches sixth-grade math and science at Blacksburg Middle School. "I feel an obligation to teach them about technology and the Internet. This is their future."

Utin's classroom, a former machine shop, is a warm and open space that he has almost single-handedly converted into an extraordinary combination zoology/technology laboratory. Macs linked to a T-1 connection are lined up against one wall; across the large room, king-size goldfish swim placidly in a homemade aquarium the size of a small pond. It's late afternoon on a Friday, but his students are working intently on their class home page.

Utin's students use the Internet to participate in several online curriculum projects, including Kids as Global Scientists, a program in which teams of students all over the world collaborate on inquiry-based weather analysis. The fact that he can communicate with most of his students' parents via e-mail actually means less work for him, Utin says, because both parties can send and receive messages when it's convenient for them. Chasing down a parent on the phone can be a time-consuming task, he says.

Beyond such day-to-day instructional benefits, the district is making the most of its partnership with BEV by collaborating with Virginia Tech on several research projects that are generating data about the impact of networked technology on classroom learning.

One such ongoing project is Learning in Networked Communities (LiNC), which is funded by a $1.1 million National Science Foundation grant. LiNC is designed to allow students at four district schools with T-1 connections -- two in Blacksburg and two in a rural part of the county -- to use the Internet for simultaneous online collaborations.

Starting this fall, students will be conducting physics experiments in an Internet-based virtual laboratory using Java software applications written by Virginia Tech graduate students.

"If I am working in this shared virtual lab workspace and leave, you can enter later and continue the experiment," says John M. Carroll, head of the Virginia Tech computer science department and the project's lead researcher.

The project also gives the researchers an opportunity to study the students' interactions as 12th-graders develop online mentoring relationships with eighth-graders living in a different part of the county.

"This district has pockets of really-haves and pockets of really-have-nots," Arrington points out. Indeed, 33 percent of students in the school system qualify to receive free and reduced-price lunches.

"The trouble with rural schools is that the kids can't get the courses they need because the teachers don't have the resources," he adds. By connecting students with disparate backgrounds in a virtual laboratory setting, the LiNC project shows how the Internet can be used to afford kids in rural areas equal opportunities for scientific inquiry and collaboration.

Homestead high-tech

Drive south from Blacksburg for half an hour and you'll reach Riner, a small and picturesque rural community in the southwest corner of Montgomery County. Riner's slower pace and natural beauty is attracting a growing bedroom community of professionals, many of whom work in Blacksburg. Farming is still the most common way of life here, though, and the majority of the 320 students who attend Riner Elementary School come from families with limited means.

But step inside one of the portable classrooms that have been added to cope with the school's increasing enrollment, and you'll see something remarkable: Twenty-four fifth-graders, working in pairs, share a dozen brand-new Pentium-based PCs with Windows 95 and Internet access provided by a T-1 line. It's a bright and inviting classroom, with pale gray furniture and carpet chosen to help the computers blend into the classroom environment. Each computer has dual keyboards and a switch that allows the students to use either keyboard; remarkably, they never argue over whose turn is next.

These students use the Internet as an integrated part of a curriculum designed to encourage reading, writing, exploration, collaboration, and critical analysis. They also have access to a digital camera and scanner and use a web-based computer bulletin board for online discussions. A real-time online chat environment is planned, too.

And that's just half the story.

Funded by a $700,000 U.S. Department of Education grant, this research project has been nicknamed "PCs for Families" because the students in this special classroom are also provided with identical PCs to take home. The idea is for the entire family to benefit from dial-up Internet access and e-mail.

A conversation over a cup of coffee is what got the ball rolling, says Melissa Matusevich, the school district's instructional coordinator. She recalls sitting at a local cafe a few years ago with Roger Ehrich, a Virginia Tech computer science professor, when the idea struck her.

"I told Roger I'd like to take an entire classroom, provide all the kids with computers both at school and at home, and network everything together, making the technology a seamless support for a teacher running a constructivist classroom," Matusevich explains. "E-mail would allow better home-school communication, and students could learn to use the Internet as part of their repertoire of resources."

Ehrich supported the idea enthusiastically, and the two joined forces with Riner's principal, Keith Rowland, to implement the project. Every parent with a child in the fifth grade wanted to participate, so the school used a lottery to select the 24 students in the program.

To evaluate the program, BEV researchers will follow three consecutive classes through fifth, sixth, and seventh grade and compare their achievement levels against similar students elsewhere in the school system. The aim is to determine whether, under the best of circumstances, access to networked computing by both students and their families has a measurable effect on long-term student achievement. The project is now starting its second year, and by all accounts, the results so far are encouraging.

Perhaps the most striking initial finding is that the computers have become a positive and cohesive force for many of the families. "The computers became a rallying point for the family. It became a family activity," Ehrich says.

"Some of the families told stories of being brought closer together," adds Matusevich, who is writing a dissertation on the project's effects in the home and the learning environment. "The computer became a catalyst in the family."

One family told the researchers about the fifth-grader holding his little brother in his lap, teaching him the letters of the alphabet on the computer and how to press the keys. Another family related how the son worked laboriously on a PowerPoint homework presentation for hours; when the computer broke down and he lost his work, they all shared in his frustration.

One girl in the program fell in love with her computer and developed new self-confidence in school. When family troubles prompted her mother to move out of the school district with her daughter, Rowland recalls, the girl was simply devastated.

"Her mother was living in a home where there were some problems, and she'd decided to move out," he says. "When she called me and told me she was going to have to return the computer, the girl cried and cried. This computer was the best thing that had happened to this girl in school, and she didn't want to leave the program. Finally, her mom called me back and said she'd decided to move back in and work their problems out. 'Whatever it takes, we're willing to make the sacrifice,' she said."

Inside the classroom, it's easy to see why the kids feel so strongly about the program. On the day Electronic School came to visit, the students were working quietly and independently with expert guidance from teacher Susan Hood, composing e-mail to a teacher who had given them a presentation about DNA.

"Brandon is really enthusiastic about school now," says Wilma Smith, a school lunch aide whose son is in the program. "He hardly ever watches TV now -- he's on the computer instead. There's no problem getting him to do his homework, and e-mail makes it easier to contact his teachers. We were so excited to get that computer home."

There have been obstacles and disappointments, of course, including some practical issues discovered when installing the computers in students' homes.

"Many of the houses had very poor wiring and lots of telephone line noise, and we had to upgrade their phone system in order to be able to use the modem," Rowland says. "Three families did not even have telephones prior to participating in the program. The grant now provides phone service for those families."

A Virginia Tech graduate student provides technical support for the project's computers, but he's gotten stuck on the rutted rural roads several times driving to the homes of some of the participating families. "He's had to have tow trucks come and pull him out of places," Rowland adds.

Also, some of the parents were reluctant to use e-mail and a web-based computer bulletin board to communicate with the school. One man told Matusevich that his daughter would admonish him to read his e-mail, but he admitted he still hadn't done so.

"Some families have not held up their end of the agreement, such as attending parent training workshops, filling out surveys, and making sure that the child has first access to the computer at home," Rowland says. "Older brothers and sisters and even parents have in some cases been hogging the computer."

Nonetheless, the project appears to be a success. "Near the end of the year, these kids were becoming very self-confident about their abilities," Ehrich says. It's too soon to tell whether that increased confidence will result in greater achievement, but with about 25 dissertations under way on the Riner project alone, it's safe to say that nothing that happens to these kids is likely to be overlooked.

Networked future

Sitting in front of a Mac in his tastefully designed office, BEV Director Andrew Michael Cohill is surveying a neat array of notepad paper on his desk and contemplating the future of community networks.

"We think fiber to the home is viable today," he says. "We're going to do that in Blacksburg on a large scale. It will take 20 years or more to deploy the entire vision, but BEV will continue to serve as a testbed." The rollout of a fiber optic network starts downtown and in a residential neighborhood next year. But the poor, rural parts of the county dotted with house trailers won't be left behind, Cohill promises.

"Actually, fiber to the trailer isn't as outlandish as it sounds," he says, pointing out that trailer parks offer beneficial economies of scale because they are high-density communities. "It's not always the case that the poor are going to be underserved. The cost of wiring houses on big lots is higher than wiring trailer parks. The real key in trying to address universal access is the willingness to be innovative."

BEV will also continue to research the network's impact on the community, including schools. Future goals include opening up all computer labs in the county schools as free network access points to parents and community members on designated days. Auburn High and Middle School, located just a stone's throw from Riner Elementary School, has already opened its computer lab to parents.

"It's a way to gain public support and give back to the community, so people can't say, 'There's nothing for me there,'" says Andrea Kavanaugh, BEV's research director.

BEV is also working with other communities to help them start their own electronic villages. The nearby towns of Abingdon and Radford are well on their way, as is Craig County, and this is just in Virginia. Similar projects are beginning to appear in other parts of the country, too.

Ultimately, the goal of a community network is to help people communicate with each other better, Cohill says.

"The network lets people feel less isolated; it doesn't replace face-to-face communications, it supplements it. The real value of the network, I think, is that we can all tell our own story. We can get our voices back."

Lars Kongshem is an associate editor and webmaster of Electronic School and The American School Board Journal.

Photography by Lars Kongshem