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Treasure Island?

Navigate the net to this teaching channel, writes Jenny Benjamin, to see what online learning might be one day One day, the internet learning site will take over from the textbook as the backbone of our education system. These sites will contain, among other things, databases, learning exercises and games, notes for teachers, online homework facilities and internet parents' evenings where mum and dad can talk to the teacher via e-mail. This new age may still be a distant prospect - internet access in schools is still far too limited for it to work - but the outriders are already here. One is Spark Island, an online learning channel for children aged three to 12.

One day, the internet learning site will take over from the textbook as the backbone of our education system. These sites will contain, among other things, databases, learning exercises and games, notes for teachers, online homework facilities and internet parents' evenings where mum and dad can talk to the teacher via e-mail. This new age may still be a distant prospect - internet access in schools is still far too limited for it to work - but the outriders are already here. One is Spark Island, an online learning channel for children aged three to 12.

Set up by Spark Learning, the channel provides activities linked to UK curriculum requirements and focusing, for the moment at least, on maths, English and science. Teachers at a dozen primary schools were deeply involved in development and review, as was a team of advisers containing some very well known names, among them the IT expert Anne Sparrowhawk and educationalist Heather Govier.

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