Announcer: Supporting Hawaii’s teachers with integration of standards, curriculum, and technology, this is ETEC Connections. MedTech Online features John Southworth and his 11th grade chemistry class from the University of Hawaii Laboratory School. The students take an electronic field trip to a medical technology lab. Pre and post email and collaboration on NiceNet combine with a videoconference visit, to create a complete interactive learning experience in cyberspace.

Teacher John Southworth: The electronic field trip model is something that I used for a good many years. It involves using computer based education telecommunications to take into the classroom, rather than distant learning traditional mode out to the thousands hundreds dozens of students elsewhere. And the ability to bring into your classroom resources from wherever, and be across campus, around the world. The techniques are basically the same.

Female Student 1: You can stay in your classroom and call almost anywhere in the world, and you can also learn anything through the computer and the phone.

John Southworth: I haven’t taken many courses; I kind of got it in from the back door. I'd say I began experimenting with it in early days when I was teaching in general science, then I began applying it - particularly the recognition of our available technology, in terms of the ideal vs. the available. I would end up still waiting, if I were looking for the ideal. Because we see so many dazzling fancy things, I would like to try some of them too, but I still fall back sometimes on things like the Lumaphone, which is seen as obsolete by many people. A Lumaphone is simply a telephone, with a camera on it - a still camera, that takes still black and white pictures. And in 1987 we had a grant that got a Lumaphone for every school in the state. In relation to this particular form of the electronic field trip and applicability across the curriculum, I think that one needs to look at some of the general elements of what we call the core, and the standards. Certainly those that relate to communication, the ability to develop creative thinking in the process, to develop the ability to communicate, whether it be spoken or written, whatever different skills in that regard. It certainly then can be used to reinforce areas that deal with awareness and information transfer. So I think that it doesn’t matter what subject you're in, this is how educational technology really is more than developing technology skills, which is certainly important side benefit of this. But it is much more important as to how it furthers the whole educational learning process. Our electronic field trips in career awareness program, and MedTech is a good example where we have had the opportunity for our students in chemistry to be linked with practicing medical technologists.

Medical Technologist Dick Teshima: We have been doing electronic fields for almost twenty years now. John Southworth has been very good at starting this project.

Female Student 2: And this electronic fieldtrip is much more convenient for all of us because we just have to go to the computer lab at our own school, instead of traveling somewhere else to ask him questions and find out answers, and see what he does, and learn everything we would learn if we were actually there.

Female Student 3: Electronic field trips are much better then sitting in the classroom, cause you are not just sitting there watching the teacher talk about something, you're not reading from a text that you don’t understand.

Dick Teshima: By doing electronic field trips we are able to show them more without subjecting them to possible danger and biohazardous environments, or exposing them to patients, which might comprise patient's privacy.

First students will introduce themselves either on electronic mail or in web-based conference mode, and if they have any questions, specific to medical technology, they can ask us. The part two of that is for students to see medical technologist working in a laboratory. This is done by video taping. The reason we do this is because we don’t want a whole bunch of students visiting the clinical laboratory at one time. It is a relatively safe place, but still we have the biohazardous material and we have patients there, so we don’t want the students to visit them in person. And then we follow up with live conferencing, either through telephone conferencing or this time we did through computer based video conferencing, where students will digitally come up to the camera and introduce themselves, and ask us any follow up questions, and we will try and interact with them. At the conclusion, the student monitor will try and wrap up any other questions that they have, and then we go to asynchronous mode again, where students will give us follow up questions, and we will try to answer them.

Teacher John Southworth: The student’s act generally very positively, they tend to be surprised sometimes with what they learned.

Female Student 3: Well, I learned what a blood smear was, cause I never heard of that in my life.

Male Student 1: You can actually find diseases in a blood stream.

Female Student 4: You can see abnormities in cells.

Male Student 2: I think this kind of learning is neat because it opens up new pathways.

Male Student 3: Substitute for our class visits, so we can talk to other people across the nation and across the world.

Female Student 2: I think we learn just as much from the Internet and on the computer as if he were to come and talk to us.

Male Student 1: We can actually get on the computer, and be more involved with the learning process.

Teacher John Southworth: The engagement of the student learning because they can see relevance. They can be in touch with people that are really doing this, and outside of the classroom. So much of our time is inside the classroom. And the ability to be in touch, whether it be a scientists, musician, artists, a historian, I think this gives reality to the classroom.

Announcer: An ETEC Connection's thanks to John Southworth and his class, along with Dick Teshima of the Medical Technology Division of the University of Hawaii. We encourage you to explore the resources that John has provided on the ETEC Connections website, including the project outline, standards met, and a special tutorial on using NiceNet in your classroom. In addition feel free to explore our website for other Overviews, Feature video offerings, tips on getting grants, and more. MedTech Online has been a LEI Aloha production of the Educational Technology Department, College of Education, University of Hawaii.