School excursions are being taken to another dimension, writes Victoria Nikulin.

Tyrannosaurus Rex. In the deathly silence of the deserted museum, their imaginations see the skeleton twitch and hear its ancient bones begin to clatter.

Meanwhile, primary students from droughtridden western NSW watch tropical fish from the depths of the Great Barrier Reef. Their diving instructor stops to answer excited questions about the shark gliding overhead.

At the same time a group of children from a remote central NSW school is being shown around the famous NASA Space Centre in Houston by a man who has actually walked in space and seen earth as a small blue sphere.

Through each of these experiences abstract concepts come alive. Through technology, it’s all made possible without students having to leave the school grounds.

Virtual excursions, videoconferencing field trips, visual collaborations – no single phrase has yet been coined to adequately convey the innovative and exciting interactive experiences which are being created, piloted and supported by the Connections program.

As part of the department’s Rural and Distance Education Unit (RDE), Connections has been enabling schools to access teaching and learning opportunities around the globe over the past 18 months.

David Foley, manager of the RDE technologies team, says in its simplest form Connections “almost acts as a switchboard”, linking a school’s videoconferencing facilities to equipment at the host location. Even more exciting is the work being done to offer NSW public schools access to virtual excursions anywhere in the world where the technology is in place.

Currently listed on the Connections website are visits to the Australian National Museum, Questacon, Anglo-Australian Observatory in Siding Springs, Dubbo’s Western Plains Cultural Centre, interactive performances by the Bell Shakespeare Company and other successful concepts.

Already popular with schools are the NASA visits, around which Connections and the space station have developed a number of teaching modules with clear curriculum-based outcomes for Years K-12.

Education specialists who are space enthusiasts with a science or history background run the sessions.

“NASA is teaching our students two sessions a day, four days a week, 40 weeks a year. We’re sold out for this year and we’re asking NASA to make more capacity now,” Mr Foley says.

While there is an argument that virtual experiences can never replace soaking up the atmosphere first-hand, the technology is overcoming issues of accessibility on several levels.

Having visited NASA in person, Mr Foley says the virtual excursions “get the camera into places that I didn’t see when I went. Our students get access to all areas; they get shown things you just wouldn’t see otherwise”.

It’s not just where students can go, but who can get there, that is capturing the imagination of teachers.

Anson Street School teacher Stuart Vidler says the NASA experience was liberating for his students, many of whom are dependant upon wheelchairs for their mobility.

“Socio-economically and with their disabilities they don’t get to travel but they were able to zoom from Anson Street [Orange] to Houston through that excursion,” he says.

Mr Vidler says the quality of the experience was enhanced by the presenter’s high level of engagement with the students.

“She had them involved in scientific demonstrations about gravity and the vestibular system, which controls your balance. “Astronauts have to train themselves to balance in space and our children have problems with balance, so she was able to take something they understood and show them how it applies in space.”

It was the same high level of interactivity that excited the students of Tottenham Central School when they took a virtual excursion to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Townsville. Principal Denise King, who has been involved in virtual excursions since Connections began, says some of her Western region students had never been to the coast and were “blown away” by the 90-minute “visit” to Townsville’s reefHQ, the world’s largest living coral reef aquarium.

Mrs King says the students were excited at being able to ask the diver questions in real time and direct him within the massive reef environment.

“They actually had a cameraman and a diver go down into the tank. The diver had a microphone inside his mask and we were able to talk to him and ask him questions. So, if he was swimming past a starfish and our kids called out ‘What’s that?’, he’d go back, pick it up and explain all about it,” Mrs King says.

As part of the Country Areas Program (CAP), the school was able to access the experience, which cost about $300, through CAP funding.

“We [included] students through Stages 1 to 3, and the high school students sat in too. We had it up on the interactive whiteboards so the quality was good and the colours were great,” Mrs King says.

With the upcoming roll out of videoconferencing facilities to all NSW public schools through the Connected Classrooms initiative, the demand for virtual excursions seems likely to increase. Connections and other content providers are already planning and developing new experiences to tie in with the curriculum and students’ areas of interest.

“We’re moving towards having a large calendar with a database of experiences available to schools,” Mr Foley says.

A project in the pipeline is Scattered Bones being developed by Mr Foley and successful children’s writer Paul Stafford.

After encouraging a generation of young boys to lose themselves in his horror-comedy books, Mr Stafford created the award-winning Dead Bones Society, a boy’s writing program that operates out of the Bathurst Fossil and Mineral Museum.

Along with Mr Stafford and some male teacher education students from Charles Sturt University, the boys meet after hours among the prehistoric remains to “concoct crazy and convoluted story plans and write equally lopsided stories”.

“Only one logistical hurdle prevents the successful formula being replicated elsewhere – not many removalists handle T-Rex these days, and we need that awesome collection of fossils and minerals to get students locked in,” Mr Stafford says.

Scattered Bones will be a videoconferencing experiment funded by the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal and will operate through Connections. It will combine virtual tours of the Bathurst Fossil and Mineral Museum with lectures by professionals on aspects of the collection followed by a scaffolded writing workshop by Mr Stafford.

Other experiences are currently being considered for the Connections database and, depending on the costs, could be offered to smaller groups of schools or as marquee events, where hundreds of students participate simultaneously.

“We’re looking at new events which could include live experiences at Pearl Harbour, a search for extraterrestrial life, videoconferences with Olympians at the Beijing Games and an experience through Siding Springs Observatory on the Ancient astronomers of Peru.”

It’s virtually an endless world of discovery, Mr Foley says.