Education Groups to Collaborate with USC on Multimedia Technology

By Bob Calverley
  USC News Service

Education officials from Hawaii and West Virginia have signed an agreement with the University of Southern California to collaborate on the implementation of multimedia and creative technologies in local schools.
     The agreement will give the Central Oahu School District [see O'ahu Schools on the World Wide Web], Moanalua Complex, in Hawaii and the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation access to cutting-edge multimedia and creative technologies developed at the USC School of Engineering's Integrated Media Systems Center. It also will give IMSC researchers a testbed for those innovations.
     "The ultimate goal of this partnership is to provide people in the states of Hawaii and West Virginia with new technology skills and enhanced career opportunities, as well as to integrate IMSC technologies into their respective schools," says IMSC director Chrysostomos "Max" Nikias. IMSC is the only National Science Foundation-funded engineering research center specializing in multimedia and creative technologies.
     "Our educational mission to provide training opportunities for West Virginians of all ages will accelerate tremendously under this agreement," says Lydotta Taylor, vice president of the WVHTC Foundation. "We look forward to multimedia access and the testbed opportunities."
     "This project will enable Hawaii's students to transcend the physical boundaries of our island state," says Aileen Hokama, district superintendent of the Central Oahu School District, "and it will create unprecedented opportunities for learning."
     The U.S. Department of Education has designated Hawaii and West Virginia as Challenge Centers and provided grants to foster innovative educational initiatives in the two states, which have not benefited as much as other states from the current economic boom.
     Signing the agreement were Margaret Furukawa, principal of Salt Lake Elementary and co-director of the Moanalua Complex; Robert Hee, of the U.S. Postal Service and industry representative to the Moanalua Complex; Leonard M. Silverman, dean of the USC School of Engineering; Taylor; Hokama; and Nikias.