Students Get Stuck into Online Learning
By PALMER, Harriet
LEARNING has taken on a futuristic look at seven Taranaki High Schools.
Students are benefiting from being part of Tarinet, using virtual communications (VC — video conferencing and broadband technology) to provide classes across the country.
The idea is to offer subjects the students would not normally have access to, particularly in small rural schools.
Options are only as restricted as the curriculum, with Te Reo and accounting proving popular.
At Inglewood High School, one of the Tarinet schools, students sit at desks with cameras pointed at them.
Instead of a teacher standing at the front there are two screens, one for the teacher and other for students.
The system is voice activated so whoever is speaking is shown on screen.
The technology is certainly space age and students agree it was pretty weird at first, but now it is "pretty cool".
Rachael Gordge (17), a student at Inglewood High School, takes year 13 art history using VC, also known as e-learning.
Her teacher is at Waitara High School and her classmates are at Stratford High School and Waimate High School in Canterbury.
For Rachael, VC is good because it lets her take a subject she would not have been able to choose without the access to Waitara High’s resources.
"It’s really good because it means if you’ve got less facilities you can still do what you want to do. You don’t have to go to a big school to do what you want to do," she says.
Other Taranaki schools involved are Stratford High School, Opunake High School, Coastal Taranaki School, Waitara High School, St Mary’s Diocesan School and Patea Area School.
Taranaki’s e-principal Rachel Roberts is responsible for the students and five teachers involved in the Tarinet cluster, and they are starting to work with others across the country.
"No money changes hands, a school will offer a teacher which enables their school to do any of the courses," Ms Roberts says.
"It allows us to offer in areas of strength and share strong teachers," she says.
Funding for the equipment was provided to the first schools involved in 2002 by Taranaki Electricity Trust, although Tarinet is in the process of seeking sponsorship to update equipment to schools.
Ms Roberts says Tarinet gives students more voice and choice in their learning.
"It’s about delivering quality outcome for our students," Ms Roberts says.
"Our kids in Taranaki now have more options than a Wellington city college."
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