Telstra Learn-IT pilot program wins international award

April 3, 1998

A pilot project that has allowed country students studying an academic talent science program to join their city teachers face-to-face, using state-of-the art video technology, has won a prestigious international award.

Education Minister Colin Barnett said today that the Telstra Learn-IT pilot program won the 'distance learning application of the year award' in the 1998 Teleconferencing Excellence Awards of the International Teleconferencing Association.

The award was presented at the association's Communications Expo at the Pennsylvania Conference Centre in Philadelphia last week.

The joint Education Department-Telstra project took first prize ahead of a 'virtual university' and other winners including the United States Navy and some of the biggest names in international telecommunications.

Mr Barnett said the award was a feather in the caps of the Education Department, the School of Isolated and Distance Education and the teachers and students who were participating in the program.

Year nine students from Donnybrook District High School and Margaret River Senior High School worked with science teacher Garry Gardner, of Governor Stirling Senior High School, from July to December last year.

Four of the Donnybrook students have continued on this year, working on their year 10 program with Mr Gardner.

Mr Gardner works from a studio-style classroom at his Midland school and through a video conferencing hook-up he can see and talk to his students hundreds of kilometres away and they can watch his practical demonstrations and respond to his questions.

The Minister said an independent report on the pilot program had shown that the students' learning had been enhanced by the use of technology and it had proved a viable method of delivering the academic talent science program in a distance learning situation.

The program had been so successful for science lessons that further trials had been undertaken with mathematics.

"This is the first time that video conferencing has been used in the regular delivery of education to school students in Western Australia," Mr Barnett said.

"It opens the door to major educational opportunities for students who live in rural and isolated areas and therefore has great potential in a State as big as ours.

"It places specialist teachers in face-to-face format with students who might not otherwise have had the opportunity to work in a challenging program unless they moved to the city.

"While the School of Isolated and Distance Education has provided lessons through telematics - using a combination of text and audio through computer monitors - adding the pictures can significantly enhance students' capacity for, and interest in learning."

The Minister paid tribute to the contribution of Telstra to the pilot study. Telstra contributed $50,000 which financed telecommunication links into the schools and relief teaching.

International video conferencing company VTEL had donated equipment worth $35,000 to the program including cameras and monitors and other integrated multi-media technology.

"They have also contributed enormously in the form of professional support and advice to the teachers," Mr Barnett said.

Media contact: Justine Whittome (08) 9222 9699