Brave new class: reading, writing and virtual reality

Students grasp concepts better and are more engaged in lessons when teachers use digital technology such as interactive whiteboards, according to teachers involved in a professional learning project.

Teachers from six schools in northern Sydney were given special training in the equipment, which is being distributed to 2900 NSW schools over the next year and includes electronic whiteboards, video conferencing and digital resources.

Gretel Watson, one of two teachers from Curl Curl North public school who took part in the project last year, said the students were so excited about their lessons when they used the technology that they were willing to skip part of their lunch hour.

"I had a visitor to my classroom and the kids were showing them what they were doing and the bell rang, and I said, 'Who wants to stay?' and 17 kids out of 24 stayed," said Mrs Watson, who addressed an interactive classroom conference in Sydney on Monday.

"They're hugely engaged."

Students can touch the whiteboards to move objects on them. Other resources had allowed classes to "grow" virtual tomatoes that responded to watering and fertiliser, and develop games that helped students with maths, she said.

The School of the Air and remote schools have been using video conferencing to share lessons and resources for years; the technology is now becoming mainstream. The NSW Department of Education will distribute it to 200 schools by the end of this week and 400 by the end of the year as part of its Connected Classrooms program.

It has allowed students to take virtual tours of a NASA base and the Great Barrier Reef.

Jan Zanetis, a US educator and conference guest who has developed interactive classrooms, said schools would eventually use social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. She said some progressive school systems were already doing so.

But Bob Lipscombe, the deputy president of the NSW Teachers Federation, said there was not enough technical support for teachers to deal with Connected Classrooms.

"We're particularly concerned given that the Federal Government is going to roll out huge numbers of computers in schools," Mr Lipscombe said.

"We believe the state has now reached a point where it needs full-time technicians for high schools across the state and some of the larger primary schools."

SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald