The internet has made it easier for students to learn in many ways. Students no longer have to spend endless hours at a library conducting research with old textbooks; now they can communicate with peers and teachers through email and even expand their education beyond the content that is taught within the walls of classrooms. Web technology is continuing to transform the way that teachers teach and how students learn, and with four adolescent brothers, I wonder what the remainder of their education years will look like. Will they read from Kindles instead of textbooks, like Case
Western Reserve University students (via
USA Today)? Will their schools provide 75 miles of internet networking cable, so that their out-of-town friends can access the classroom? Or will their teachers begin to add games such as Quest Atlantis, a
science game that teaches students about water quality, to their curriculums? Technology is rapidly changing the way that we learn, but just how far will that go?
In Florida, one school has already taken online learning through the use of gaming to the extreme. Earlier this week, the
St. Petersburg Times reported that there is a school where students attend high school “virtually,” through participation in a curriculum that revolves around online games. Experts believe that the Florida Virtual School “may be the only online game-based, credit-bearing high school course in the United States.” At this school, a game entitled “Conspiracy Code” is the curriculum. This “10-stage, two-semester game” currently has 240 students enrolled in the course and approximately twelve have already completed it.
If you’re wondering how this could be a successful learning model, you’re not alone. However, the game was created over a three year period, during which “developers studied brain-based learning with University of Central Florida researchers to ensure the game would get students thinking in the right ways.” The main concept behind the school is that educators are working to avoid the “invitation to disconnect” that is often given by traditional school models. Ultimately, this gives teachers an opportunity to “teach [students] on their own turf,” in the digital environment where these children have grown up.
