This program was initiated by Fort Bend Independent School District (FBISD) located in Sugar Land, Texas as a means of providing their teachers with the opportunity to obtain a state accredited Masters degree in Instructional Technology from Houston Baptist University. The two organizations then formed an alliance with the National School Conference Institute, a former subsidiary of TCI Cable, to provide satellite interactive-broadcast presentations conducted by the nation's foremost leaders in educational technology. The organization, in its fourth year, has groups of teachers participating from Trenton, Phoenix, Houston, Spring Branch, San Antonio, Willis, and Harlendale. The Technology Department at Fort Bend I.S.D. directed the project. Powersource provided technical direction and support for the three organizations.

FBISD is the second fastest growing school district in the nation. It has been nationally recognized for its outstanding leadership in the fields of distanced learning and instructional technology. Powersource has partnered with the district in numerous technology projects including preparation of new student programs, teacher training, and district distanced learning projects. The Powersource role in the district includes:

• Representing the district as a member of the Texas Super Collider Project - planned the disbursement of the scientific equipment distributed by the Department of Energy after the closing of the Super Collider Project in 1996. Powersource assisted in the development of a strategy for integrating the resultant technology into the school system
• The creation of a ColdFusion, database driven website to facilitate student interaction, University record keeping, and financial tracking. Web interface to a centralized administrative extranet
• Training the University staff to facilitate the Masters Online related record keeping into their existing data management structures. Providing data normalization and conversion to Microsoft SQL
• Providing direction for the teacher training initiative from a business perspective as a web innovator. Making recommendations to the district for staffing to support new technologies as they relate to the distance learning project
• Designing the internet communication strategies for the student groups meeting in Trenton, Phoenix, Houston, and Spring Branch
• Hardware - System Support for this project include: Clustered Windows 2000 Web servers, SQL Server, ColdFusion Server, Email and Backup servers