VIT moves to new digs
Toolbox
By PATRICK McARDLE STAFF WRITER - Published: September 17, 2009
BENNINGTON – Vermont Interactive Television has found a new home in downtown Bennington which will move them aesthetically into the 21st century, according to site manager Frederick Miller.
Miller, a regional manager for Vermont Interactive Television, or VIT, in Bennington, Castleton and Rutland, said the new location allowed VIT to hang flat-screen televisions on the walls and from the ceiling.
Having the two monitors hung from the ceiling allow people in the room to watch someone running a meeting from a remote location from either side of the room while the monitor hung on the back wall allows some running a meeting from Bennington to watch the audience at a remote location without looking off to the side.
Since 1992, VIT had been hosted at the Masonic Lodge on Main Street, but financial difficulties for the Masons left VIT looking for a new location.
Fortunately, the town of Bennington was looking for a new tenant at its senior center on Pleasant Street after Bennington Project Independence moved to its own larger location on Harwood Hill.
Bennington's Economic and Community Development Director Scott Murphy said he believed Bennington was unique among VIT's 15 statewide sites because it was the only one that wasn't located in a state building, a high school or a college which he said he hoped would increase its use by the community.
The Bennington site, which seats 28 people, is also the largest site beating Newport by one seat and Rutland and Lyndonville by two seats.
Vermont Interactive Television is a state-supported service that allows for activities such as distance learning and teleconferences.
At the end of August, Miller said the site had just hosted a Vermont Technical College class for nurses.
VIT facilities have allowed Vermonters across the state to participate in meetings hosted by the Vermont House of Representatives and Senate; adult learning classes and specialized training like master plumbers' training; and meetings for organizations like the Vermont Golfer's Association.
The interactive nature of the program is that presentations aren't simply broadcast to remote sites. The host sites also have cameras and microphones which allow the audience to interact with, for example, a professor or a legislator.
"Because they can talk to people at other remote sites and with the larger monitors and the real-time interaction, people really feel like they're in the same place at the same time," Miller said.
The equipment has the capacity to offer special features like putting pictures from five or six sites on the screen at the same time, a feature called "continuous presence," which Miller said comes in especially handy for small meetings where all the participants are at different sites.
VIT can hook up an audience-response system that allows the audience to respond to a question by the presenter at the touch of a button allowing for real-time responses to parts of the presentation.
The system's most obvious benefit, however, is that while Vermont is a small state, it can also be home to treacherous weather. With VIT, Bennington residents can take part in a Montpelier meeting in January without the driving.
"People really like VIT in the winter," he said.
With municipal parking nearby and a location about a block from Bennington's Four Corners, Murphy said he hoped the new site would be one of the most well-utilized in the site.
For more information about Vermont Interactive Television, www.vitlink.org.
patrick.mcardle@rutlandherald.com
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