Distance Learning Brings Shark Dissection to Huntsville Students

Distance learning is going way beyond your average lectures these days, and its applications are only getting better and better. This week students in Huntsville, AL, got the privilege of observing a shark dissection “first hand,” so to speak, thanks to distance learning program Education Television.

Through videoconferencing technology at their schools, kids watched Angela Moulton, education director at Huntsville’s Sci-Quest, dissect a small shark at Education Television studios with host Tom Kennemer.

The technology allowed students to ask questions about the dissection by speaking into a microphone. The messages were fed to Moulton and Kennemer, who could respond to the questions for all the students to hear.

Students used technology as simple and widespread as telephones and televisions as part of a conference project that can only be described as state-of-the-art. Huntsville school officials were thrilled by the project’s success and gave glowing recommendations of distance learning as a valuable tool in the classroom, referring to the application as “the future of learning.”

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