There's a technology revolution underway in NSW classrooms that's turning learning into something even more fun and exciting. Teachers are incorporating the Internet and creative software into lessons while more students around the state are set to become virtual globetrotters. The rollout of state-of-the-art equipment is allowing them to follow a diver to the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef and ask questions along the way, to tour NASA's Space Centre Houston or even learn guitar from someone sitting hundreds of kilometres away.

All of these interactive adventures are a long way from our own school days - in fact, it's enough to make some of us wish we were still at school. So let's walk through the changes.

The NSW Government is busy plugging all state primary and high schools into the future with interactive classrooms through its four-year Connected Classrooms Program.

Two hundred schools have already been wired to receive interactive classrooms, with the rollout continuing around the state as more schools receive additional bandwidth. Work is now focusing on readying the next 400 schools for installation of their interactive classrooms.

One of the interactive classroom's most engaging features is the interactive whiteboard, a computer-powered device that is rapidly becoming the new tool of the teaching trade. The board allows students to access a wide range of resources, such as video, audio, text and images, and interact with them in new and interesting ways.

Some schools, such as Paddington Public School in Sydney's east, were so excited about the learning possibilities that they've jumped in before the Connected Classrooms rollout to buy their own whiteboards. Paddington Public School Year 5-6 teacher Garry Taylor is a whiteboard enthusiast. "In the future, I can see the reality being that an interactive board will be as familiar as a chalkboard may have been to teachers years ago – it will become that automatic," he says.

Mr Taylor says the main advantage of whiteboards over more traditional ways of classroom support is children's engagement with the technology. "It's a great motivational force in lessons at the moment because the children

use the technology and it's not a matter of the teacher having all the information and all the answers – we're all learning as we go along together," he says.

"Sometimes I'm actually the student and they're the teacher. I think because of that role-changing there's a great deal of respect between students and the teacher."

Mr Taylor uses the equipment to archive lessons before school and call them up on cue. He can also display web pages on the whiteboard and use tools such as a virtual "highlighter pen" to draw attention to specific parts of the text. A virtual "curtain" can also block out other parts on the page, helping students to focus on what's important. "You're fully interacting with a website – it's not a static resource," he says. "It's something you can add to, you can change, you can highlight, you can reveal or not reveal." One of his favourite websites he likes to use in his classroom is www.mathletics.com.au

The interactive boards also help students to tap into their creativity. Mr Taylor and his students are exploring the possibilities of iMovies, iTunes and iDVDs. When the school recently engaged in a series of water activities, Mr Taylor's class took photos of what the various groups were doing.

"I was able to use the interactive board to demonstrate to the children how those photos can be imported into iMovies," he says. "The kids made movies of it – they put it to their own movie tracks."

The school's parents played a major part in putting a whiteboard, data projector, speakers and laptop into each classroom. Last year, the school ran information nights for parents and showed them exactly how the interactive boards could aid classroom learning.

Parents were so excited about the technology that they spread the word among other parents and raised enough money to buy the equipment.

When Paddington Public joins the Connected Classrooms Program, things will become even more exciting as videoconferencing and virtual excursions will become part of everyday lessons.

While students in rural areas have accessed virtual excursions for the past 18 months through the Rural and Distance Education (RDE) Unit, demand for these experiences will grow as more schools receive videoconferencing (VC) equipment through the Connected Classrooms initiative.

David Foley, manager of the RDE technologies team, says virtual excursions to places such as NASA's Space Centre Houston "get the camera into places that I didn't see when I went [there]. Our students get access to all areas; they get shown things you just wouldn't see otherwise".

Other virtual excursions on offer include "trips" to the Australian National Museum and Questacon in Canberra, the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Siding Springs near Coonabarabran and Dubbo's Western Plains Cultural Centre. There are also interactive performances from the Bell Shakespeare Company. "We're looking at new events which could include live experiences at Pearl Harbour, a search for extraterrestrial life ... and an experience through Siding Springs Observatory on the ancient astronomers of Peru," Mr Foley says.

One new videoconferencing idea in the pipeline is Scattered Bones. Mr Foley and children's author Paul Stafford have created the Dead Bones Society, a boys' writing program that operates out of Bathurst's Fossil and Mineral Museum after hours. Boys gather in the museum among dinosaur bones to concoct stories and have fun. The plan is to take the concept even further, combining virtual tours of the museum with lectures on the fossil collection and a writing workshop from Mr Stafford.

Sue Beveridge, the NSW Department of Education and Training's educational outcomes business change manager, says research shows that students "really like" this kind of technology.

"We're acting on this research to make sure we've all got this [technical] capacity and we can connect each school right across the system so that primary schools can talk to their high schools and we can bring in experts from outside - all of that will be possible," she says. "It gives teachers additional support.

It won't mean every lesson that's being run will be using a videoconferencing facility or an interactive whiteboard. We still need kids to do tactile things ... this just adds to the repertoire of teachers."

Some remote schools have enjoyed videoconferencing for some time - in the Riverina, for instance, one principal has been teaching guitar via videoconferencing. Under the new program, students will be able to connect with other students like never before.

"If you're at Menindee Central and you're an indigenous community, we'll be able to hook you up with an indigenous community on the Central Coast," says Ms Beveridge. "We can provide this rich community for our students to meet one another across the whole system because they'll be able to talk to one another using the videoconferencing."

The NSW Department of Education and Training is keen to expand its portfolio of virtual excursions and has approached major cultural institutions - such as the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Olympic Park Authority, Historic Houses Trust and the State Library - to encourage them to create virtual excursions.

"We've said to them, 'We're going to have 2,250 sites in NSW for you, so you could offer virtual excursions to our kids'," says Ms Beveridge. "With the cost of fuel and the fact it does cost a lot for parents to send kids on excursions, we can take the kids to those places more readily than we have in the past."

Connected Classrooms will also allow students to tap into expert tuition via online masterclasses. Former Olympic swimmer Lisa Forrest recently taped a Q&A session in which students from St Ives and Sydney Technical high schools asked about her involvement in the controversial 1980 Moscow Games. While the Sydney students joined Ms Forrest in the Centre for Learning Innovation (CLI) studio at Strathfi eld to talk sport, politics and history, students from Warialda High School in northwest NSW also took part via videoconference.

CLI assistant director Karen White said more rural schools would get the chance to participate in MasterClass sessions as the Connected Classrooms Program rolled out. "This shows how isolation can be broken down by technology," she said.

Another MasterClass featured statistician Lucy Snowball, who works for the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. She helped students from the newly formed Lachlan Macquarie College in western Sydney crunch the numbers on crime trends. Videos of these MasterClasses are stored online so they can be accessed by other schools at any time.

Connected Classrooms will also give students brand-new Learning Tools. Students will receive a secure online workspace, complete with new email and storage facilities for their work, which will be known as an "ebackpack". Using the ebackpack, they can receive and post their homework at home and at school while also creating, storing and viewing digital content.

All this connectivity will lead to other initiatives. For instance, it's envisaged that parents will one day be able to access their children's school reports online.

There's already a great deal of online support for students preparing for their HSC exams. At the Board of Studies HSC portal (http://studentsonline.bos.nsw.edu.au/), students can check out exam papers from past years as well as detailed markers' notes on answers to understand what markers are looking for and the common mistakes students make. They can also sit a practise test to help take the stress out of sitting the HSC.

Parents can also find advice on how to help their children through school at any age or stage at www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au (click on Parents Page at the left).