BILL
CAMPEAU - FOR THE SIERRA STAR
SUBMITTED
Stephanie Smittle has a session with some of the GATE students during
a break from their Virtual University computer studies.
Nearly
everyone is at least somewhat familiar with computer virtual reality
games, those wild video episodes in which players get to zap the
bad guys.
But what about a virtual university? Is it real? Can it be useful?
At Coarsegold Elementary, 18 fifth-, sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders
— all of them gifted and talented young students in the GATE program
— used their elective course to enter the Virtual University, in
Australia!
In this unique program, the students select a “course” in one of
the following: fantasy writing, mystery writing (Junior Sleuth program),
astronomy and dinosaurs, creating a website, math (Being Mathematical),
archaeology (Sifting Through Time) and ancient Egyptian civilization.
The Virtual School for the Gifted (VSG) is the first school to operate
solely over the Internet, taking advantage of such services as e-mail,
mailing lists, the World Wide Web and newsgroups. Specifically aimed
at gifted students, all teaching, socializing and assessment is
done electronically via the Internet.
VSG is an online community, where students are involved in small
classes working with specialist teachers. General discussion groups
enable students to chat with their new-found friends. Teachers and
students talk about the subjects they’re working on and follow ideas
which emerge from these discussions.
Stephanie Smittle, a smiling young teacher who taught the fourth-,
fifth- and sixth-grade classes at Coarsegold Elementary over a seven-year
period and now teaches second graders, discovered VSG. She taught
two years in Del Norte County in Northern California before coming
to Coarsegold. “I was looking for a program for these students and
I stumbled across VSG,” she said.
“We did a pilot program in February to see if it would work and
to ensure that it would have the right incentive for our children,”
Smittle explained. The program was launched May 3 and apparently
it worked to perfection. “On the first day the students were so
engrossed no one in the class realized the period was over. They
kept right on working for more than 20 minutes beyond the end of
the class before finally looking at the clock.”
She said one group in the class has a band and they’re working on
their own web page. Another is working on archaeology. Smittle stands
by as the students proceed with their projects, ready to help and
making suggestions.
The VSG class continues until school ends. At that time Smittle
assesses the students’ work one last time and hands out grades.
Judging from the way they have attacked their courses, no one could
imagine any of them getting anything but top grades.
Not to worry.com.