Principals from about 25 Seventh-Day Adventist schools from across the United States recently visited Whitney Institute in Smith?s parish to learn more about the Online Curriculum Project the school has been using for about a year.

Should the local Seventh-Day Adventist school, the Bermuda Institute, implement the online curriculum, it will be the first private school on the Island to do so ? and the only other school besides Whitney to use the programme. But the Minister of Education, Terry Lister this week said that discussions were underway to implement the online curriculum at other schools on the Island, ?sooner than later?.

Over the last few months teachers and principals from middle schools have visited Whitney to see first hand the online curriculum in action.

Whitney Institute principal Freddie Evans said online curriculum was differentiated to cater to different learning styles - providing the same lesson at three different levels.

The lessons are placed onto a computer server and then made accessible to all classrooms and resources to support the lessons can be found on the server.

Tests, video clips, quizzes, and films are also available on the programme and should other schools adopt the system, information can be shared with everyone. Mr. Evans said the system was proving invaluable and exercised five skills including interpersonal, problem solving, maths, language arts, and technology.

He said the programme uses teachers? time efficiently and makes it more beneficial to learning because teachers have more time to actually teach instead of spending time drawing up lesson plans and looking for teaching aids. In the classroom teachers operate the online curriculum from a laptop and the lessons are projected onto a large screen. Classrooms are also equipped with computers for the students to access the programme. Mr. Evans said he was introduced to the online curriculum while working in Texas as an assistant principal and when he became principal of Whitney, he sent a handful of teachers to Texas to learn about the online curriculum.

Mr. Evans managed to rustle up funding and The Bank of Bermuda, AWAC, Renaissance Re, XL Foundation, ACE Foundation, BTEC, Bermuda Telephone Company Ltd., and the Bank of Butterfield donated the $730,000 needed to purchase and install the project.

Mr. Evans said visiting teachers and principals were so impressed by the system, that they were eager to have it implemented in other schools, both in Bermuda and abroad. The server Whitney purchased is big enough to run all the middle schools.

Bermuda Institute principal, Lois Tucker confirmed that discussions were underway to implement the programme, but added that they were still just in the discussion phase.

Meanwhile the Shadow Minister of Education, Neville Darrell said he was very supportive of and excited by the outstanding work taking place at the Whitney School.

?The online curriculum is truly transforming the way teachers teach and students learn. The blackboard has been replaced by the computer interface as students and teacher pilot their way through curriculum that is presented in a highly interactive format,? he said.

He added that following numerous visits to the school, he found that pupils seemed to enjoy the process of learning more than the more traditional methods of educational instruction, which characterised most of our schools. ?The other thing I support about this approach to education is that it allows teachers to devote more attention to those who need extra assistance, without slowing the pace of learning for the entire classroom of children,? he said.

Mr. Darrell said as children navigate their way through their studies, they were learning valuable computer literacy skills. ?Thus computer literacy is not separated and distinct from their regular studies. In a world that demands a level of computer literacy from all of us, this style of learning represents a tremendous step forward,? he said.

Mr. Darrell said he had taken a keen interest in the project when it was first adopted by Whitney.

?I know that when the Whitney family decided to adopt the model there was resistance from the Ministry of Education about pursuing such an approach to educating our children. ?I, therefore, applaud the vision and courage of the principal, the Board and the teachers for enthusiastically pursuing this outstanding initiative. ?