In 1980 Lisa Forrest was branded – by some sections of the media – a traitor.

The then 16-year-old schoolgirl was captain of the Australian Olympic women’s swim team for the Moscow Games.

With the government and media calling for a boycott of the Games in retaliation for the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, Ms Forrest was among those that chose to compete.

But the pressure took its toll and in her 200-metre backstroke final she came a disappointing seventh.

Twenty-eight years later there are calls from some quarters to boycott the Beijing Olympics.

The parallels between the  past and present were not lost on anyone participating in the latest MasterClass session taped at the Centre for Learning Innovation’s (CLI) recording studio.

Students from St Ives and Sydney Technical high schools grilled Ms Forrest about her life and her just-published book Boycott, which details the drama and politics around the Moscow Games.

Warialda High School students, from north-west NSW, also joined in the panel discussion via videoconference to illustrate the potential of the technology, which is to be rolled out to all government schools through the Connected Classrooms initiative.

The MasterClass concept links students anywhere in NSW with expert tuition and leads to the development of teaching and learning resources that are placed on the CLI internet and the Teaching and Learning exchange (www.tale.edu.au).

Karen White, CLI’s assistant director, said the Lisa Forrest MasterClass worked well with the Year 9 and 10 Australian history and citizenship syllabus and the Year 11 and 12 modern history and history extension syllabuses.

“The material is aligned to the syllabus outcomes and organised in a way that is friendly for teachers to use,” Ms White said.

“They could use the whole resource or incorporate parts of the resource into their lessons to stimulate classroom discussion.”

During the recent session, the student panellists asked Ms Forrest about the intersection of politics and sport and the research techniques she used to write her book.

Of particular interest were the “primary sources” the former Olympian had used and the tips she had for senior history students working on independent investigation projects.

Ms Forrest, who completed Year 12 at Cromer High School in 1981, stressed to students the importance of finding a topic that was of interest to them, but to be mindful of any potential bias sources may have.

She also found through interviews for her book that many of the Australian politicians and sports officials at the centre of the 1980 Olympic controversy had adopted a different viewpoint over time.

St Ives High School head teacher teaching and learning Sharyn Anderson said that was an important message for students.

“And like Lisa, [the students] also need to research a topic that is relevant to their lives,” Ms Anderson said. “That way they will research it and follow it through.”

Head teacher history at  Sydney Technical High School Peter Heath said he expected the student panellists to gain “an insight into how to write history for a popular audience” after interviewing Ms Forrest. He said the involvement of rural schools like Warialda High showed how the MasterClass initiative ensured “schools outside Sydney have equitable access to quality learning materials”.

Ms White said more rural schools would participate in future MasterClass sessions as the Connected Classrooms Program rolled out.

“This shows how isolation can be broken down by technology,” she said.

“It reflects the public education ethos of equity in that no matter which school you come from you will have the same opportunities.”