Chief scientist Alan Finkel's e-learning company has teamed up with the CSIRO to bring the online education revolution to Australian primary schools.
The new program, called Double Helix Lessons from CSIRO, is offered by Stile Education, a company founded and majority-owned by Dr Finkel, in its e-learning platform that was especially developed for schools.
Stile CEO Byron Scaf said that the online lessons were for children in years 5 and 6 and allowed them to go through the curriculum at their own pace, with the teacher walking around the classroom to assist where necessary.
"That's a really great use of the teacher's time rather than standing up the front talking at them," he said.
Since his appointment as chief scientist Dr Finkel is no longer involved in the management or the governance of Stile.
The lessons offered by Stile also bring in material from the CSIRO's popular children's science magazine Double Helix, and include interactive interviews with CSIRO scientists.
The significance of the new program is that it brings the concept of the "flipped classroom" to primary schools, in which students learn basic knowledge from a structured online course rather than from the teacher standing at the front of the room. In the flipped learning model, students later strengthen their learning by doing projects (in groups or individually) or through classroom discussion.
Mr Scaf said that, using Stile, students could watch videos, explore a science simulation, use virtual reality (if they had the necessary equipment) and answer questions, with the answers being available to the teacher.
They can also use the platform to work with other children on inquiry-based projects.
"It's not like they are sitting online away from each other," Mr Scaf said.
"They are in the classroom interacting but instead of having the text book in front of them they have this beautiful, dynamic, rich experience on their iPads."
Full report
Teachers also get a full report on the progress each student is making, which is another advantage of online learning which makes it easier to monitor whether a student is falling behind. Teachers can also customise the program if they choose.
Stile hopes that the new program will improve the level of science education in primary schools, which faces the problem that most primary school teachers are not science trained.
Double Helix Lessons from CSIRO was launched last week at St Agatha's Primary School in Melbourne.
Deputy principal Paul Sharp said it was easy for teachers to use and contained "amazing content and interactives".
"We'd never be able to create this type of digital content ourselves," he said.
The new program complements Stile's other major science program, which links the junior high school science curriculum to up-to-date stories about science in the Cosmos science magazine, also owned by Dr Finkel.
"We take something really interesting which is in the magazine and we explain the science behind it," Mr Scaf said.
"For example when he had the Ebola crisis we released a lesson, which was curriculum linked, about that topic."
He said the Cosmos for Schools program was now in 11 per cent of Australian high schools.
