[1][2] Launched in 1985, the ICTV system connected classrooms in four Sibley County, Minnesota, schools together by using four unused channels on Triax Cablevision's cable TV lines that already served the communities (installed a few years prior).
In 1989, the National School Boards Association launched school-site visits to several areas, including Sibley County, to show off distance learning systems.
To transport the TV signals generated by each school to all of the other schools, they were broadcast over the local cable television system that already connected the four communities, on four unused channels: Because the cable TV system was used, people at home in the communities could also watch classes being taught, although they could not interact with them.
Taking advantage of this "feature", each school also connected a computer running a slide-show program to the system that broadcast school-related news and information (announcements, calendars, lunch menus, etc.)
The larger class sizes as a result of these consolidations meant the system was no longer necessary.