THE TECHNOLOGY
Upon enrollment, each student is given state of the art, cutting edge technology for his or her school year. From Kindergarten through twelfth grade, each student has a computer built into his or her workstation. Each workstation is functional, able to house a state of the art computer and digital equipment. Each computer has the capability to interact with the children and is complete with voice recognition. If a child, other than the child to whom the computer belongs, tries to access the computer with their voice, the computer goes into shutdown mode until the correct child/voice activates the system. There is a 17" flat screen monitor embedded into the glass writing area of the workstation. Each workstation is also complete with a scanner, high-speed Internet connection and email account, digital imaging software, digital camera, LaserJet printer, and a Palm Pilot. Each child also receives a laptop computer for class or home use.
Everything, with the exception of their workstation computer, can be freely taken home each and every day by the student. Each child is also given free Internet access in their home until they graduate, or leave the Utopian school setting.
When a child is out of school, or on vacation, he/she can access the classroom directly from home via their laptop computer, via streaming video, equipped with a chat session, where the student can ask questions of the teacher during the classroom from wherever they are viewing the classroom.
Each classroom is also equipped with Video Teleconferencing, where the classrooms have the capability to teleconference with other schools, government institutions, as well as big businesses in the world, to learn, grow, explore, and seek answers to our questions in a "live" format, virtually anywhere in the world.
In the video teleconferencing section of each classroom, the 18' x 33' space is inside of the classroom and it is large enough to allow up to thirty students. Furnished with comfortable chairs and seminar tables, children may actively participate and simultaneously communicate with other centers using the two-way interactive distance learning video system. The system allows the remote site to see and hear themselves on screen while seeing and hearing other students/businesses from the site in which they are communicating. This unit is also equipped with a state-of-the-art camera for students to share visual information with the instructor and other sites. A projector and projector screen are available in the room. The projection system allows presenters to utilize computer-generated presentations and the audience to see clear and sharp images directly from a computer presentation. Additional television monitors allow for easy viewing. A networked computer and printer are available for use in the room to interact with other sites from transmitting campuses, as well as for independent student use. The room is also equipped with a phone, fax, and color copier.
Each classroom is also equipped with virtual reality technology. Each teacher can take his or her students virtually anywhere in the world. This technology includes the head tracking gear, the motion trackers, the data gloves, and educational virtual reality packages, including the human lab, mission to mars, cells, the heart, and the solar systemcontinent study, moon and stars, oceans, countries, and others. With these types of activities in the classroom, children can learn about complicated scientific concepts with a playful approach to learning. In the Green house lab, children can breed virtual rice, wheat, tomatoes, watermelon, and corn with various genetic characteristics. By using a graphical control panel, students can select which traits to combine and watch the resulting growth over a four-month period. Each classroom is designed to create the most positive, unsurpassed, learning experience for each child in today's society.
There are also independent computer labs, which is used for a general-purpose learning facility available to students on a free-for-use basis. The room also serves as aadditional interactive video room. The room is equipped with a ceiling mounted projector linked to an instructional computer, fifty networked computer stations with Internet capability, touch screens, a combination VCR/DVD, and large screen projection television.
