With three Telly Awards this year and a nomination for a 2009 Emmy Award by the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, UWTV has been making a name for itself in the region.

“Awards are important to validate the quality of our work,” said Jack Hoffman, director of production at UWTV.

While the awards may help to validate the quality of UWTV, more important than the validation is the actual work the station does for the university.

For the past five years, professors in the UW School of Dentistry have dreamed of expanding the school’s borders to bring quality dental care to rural and under-served areas of Washington. With the innovative technology of UWTV engineers, the Regional Initiative for Dental Education (RIDE) program became a reality in fall 2008.

The project presents eight graduate students from the UW School of Dentistry with the opportunity to participate in a distance-learning program between the UW Seattle campus and the Riverpoint campus in Spokane, Wash.

Through the collaboration of RIDE and UWTV engineers, a high-tech classroom was designed to connect the students in Spokane to dental students and professors in Seattle.

UWTV video engineer Noah Pitzer and David Pitts, director of educational technology for RIDE, combined resources and ideas to create the new learning system.

“It’s our job to raise the level of videoconferencing within the classroom to near-television standards by incorporating multiple cameras, high-quality audio and seamless transitions for the users,” Pitzer said. “We hope to lessen the barrier of technology so that people feel more connected and forget the distance.”

Pitts explained obstacles the groups have faced with the new technology.

“Getting students and lecturers accustomed to videoconferences or simulcast lecture sessions, and getting everyone actively involved at both ends as if they were all in the same room has been a challenge,” Pitts said. “It does not seem to come naturally, and students and lecturers alike tend to be shy about asking questions of those on the other end.”

RIDE Director Wendy Mouradian said that, although the program has only been implemented for a short time, it has already seen success.

“The distance-learning classroom has been a much more integral part of the program than we thought it would be, and it’s exciting to see how much students like this mode of learning,” Mouradian said.

As evidenced by the RIDE program, technology and the use of video is quickly becoming an essential and integral part of education at the UW.

“We want to be ready for what we expect will be an explosion in the use of mobile devices for watching video,” said James Alls, director of UWTV engineering and operations. “We are watching the industry closely to be ready to adapt and take advantage of changing technology and meet the needs of our growing audience.”

Reach contributing writer Elisa Casey at development@dailyuw.com.