Exemplary Practices 2008

Students Connect Through Technology

John Harris believes passionately in the integration of technology into expanding and enhancing learning. While teaching in the Langley, BC school district, he was tasked with starting a new school which became known as Lochiel U-Connect. This school has evolved into a stimulating learning environment that blends site-based face-to-face instruction with online home-learning while utilizing effective research proven ICT learning tools. The program grew and now has its own building and an enrollment of over 200 students with a waiting list.

One of the many ways Harris integrates technology into learning is through student generated 2D and 3D online simulations and games that are used to fulfill curricular objectives. For example, to support the issues of dwindling Pacific Coast Salmon stocks and fish farming, one team of students designed a complex digital salmon farm "business simulator." Others built an online salmon dissection game that uses a virtual scalpel to systematically explore this species' internal bodily structure. A third group created a stream builder game with the goal of allowing the user to design a stream that will successfully support the hatch of the highest possible salmon population.

Also, in his quest to transition students from mere "consumers" of digital media to actual "creators" of interactive content, Harris encourages students to produce simulations using 3-D multiple user virtual environments. (e.g. "MUVEs") To enhance the learning and motivational potential of student generated immersive 3-D worlds, learners are taught a "taxonomy of interactivity." They are then encouraged to embed purposive high level interactions to support, for example, math and science outcomes as they construct a "live" shopping mall or create simulations of NASA's space based experiments. He has found that MUVEs are not only a valuable catalyst to the transference of learning from online settings to real world problems, but that they also allow students to investigate, he says, "experiments that are either too dangerous or too expensive to do in class."

A second example of how technology is integrated into learning at U-Connect is the use of robotics for cross-curricula investigations. Math teachers, says Harris, all use manipulatives. "Why not use math manipulatives that move?" he asks. Robotics is used to teach everything from elementary school multiplication to high school trigonometry. They use several sensors (e.g. distance, sound, touch and light sensors) along with a wide range of outputs to teach and model math or scientific concepts such as nanotechnology and energy conservation. A third application involves integrating live data streams that Harris deems are personally relevant to students.

One application that is currently being developed involves monitoring the personal health of students who wear an innovative wristband that observes movement, tracks heart rate changes and time stamps the readings. Student heart and motion data will, in turn, be used to set physical and conditioning goals, since heart rate is one key indicator of fitness progress. All of the data will be uploaded into a website along with a personalized recommended conditioning program. If a person's heart rate needs to be adjusted by taking on more exercise, they will be sent reminders through email or even through a cell phone. All of the data can also be integrated into a 3D virtual world that explores nutrition and health. If a person's fitness level improves, they will be rewarded with a flashier avatar that gives them more rights and privileges in the virtual world. It's "Second Life" for health.

Despite his interest in technology, Harris doesn't consider himself a "super geek." He started his career as a music teacher and still stages concerts at the school. "My overall goal was to blend online learning with face-to-face learning," he says. "I saw the wonderful potential of the new technology so I thought, why not have our cake and eat it too and have the best of both worlds?"