The Indiana DOE's Office of Learning Resources annually offers grant funding to Indiana schools and educators to promote the effective use of distance education.

Distance Education can be described as the instructional use of telecommunications. It provides the means to deliver instruction between geographically separate sites and extends educational resources to learners who would otherwise be unable, due to time or distance, to access them.

As of the beginning of the 1997-98 school year, a number of Indiana elementary and secondary schools were making use of a variety of distance education technologies. Over 320 schools were equipped to receive IHETS; over 90 had steerable, multi-purpose satellite receiving dishes; approximately 90% were making some instructional use of the Internet; and approximately 185 were connected to fiber optic networks. The Indiana DOE supports the appropriate uses of distance education with consultative and other related services and an annual program of grants to schools and school districts across the state.

In June of 1998, the Office of Learning Resources awarded thirty-five grants ranging from $1,585 to $5,000--$157,118.00 total--to educators across Indiana for the use of telecommunications in middle school grades for reading and literature instructional activities to take place during the 1998-1999 school year. Grants totaling $140,486.00 were awarded by the Office of Learning Resources in June of 1997 to sixty individual agricultural business, agricultural science, and marketing education teachers across Indiana. The purpose of the grants was to provide financial assistance to the teachers in implementing the use of computer-based telecommunications for instructional purposes in their classrooms during the 1997-1998 school year. Funding from the initiative could be used for: a) the acquisition of appropriate computer hardware and software; b) installation and maintenance of requisite telecommunications lines into the classrooms; and, c) payment of subscription or participation fees for specific programs and purchase of classroom supplies or materials directly related to participation in grant funded programs. The sixty grant recipients were selected from 180 teachers who applied. The amounts of the individual grants ranged from $1463.00 to $2500.00. The recipients represented 54 different schools in 49 different Indiana school districts.

Previous distance education grant initiatives include $284,070.00 awarded to 125 Indiana teachers for instructional use of computer-based telecommunications in the elementary classrooms during the 1996-1997 school year; $271,887.00 awarded to 125 Indiana teachers for instructional use of computer-based telecommunications in elementary classrooms during the 1995-1996 school year; $100,750.00 awarded during the 1993-1994 school year to forty-five Indiana high schools in thirty-five districts to assist them in offering their qualified students selected advanced placement mathematics and science courses via distance education; and fifty-two distance education planning grants totaling $155,530.00 and eleven distance education implementation grants totaling $68,493.00 awarded during the 1992-1993 school year.

Other Indiana agencies and organizations with material involvement in K-12 distance education include: the Ameritech-funded Corporation for Educational Communications; the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities at Ball State University; the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunication System (IHETS); and the state Intelenet Commission.