Imagine two business people, half a world apart, meeting in a virtual world. Virtual reality goggles allow them to see each other in three-dimensional space, headsets let them hear in stereophonic sound, and a haptic bodysuit that fills with thousands of air bubbles simulates the pressure of a handshake or the exchange of documents. Read more
Oakville, Ontario — Oakville's SMLS continues to be a premier independent school for girls Preschool to Grade 12 since 1891. "Millie" graduates take on the world with confidence and the knowledge that they can do anything. View School Profile.
Grades:
PS to 12 (Girls)
Type:
Progressive, Reggio Emilia
Tuition:
$21,000 to $31,065
Living:
Day
Enrollment:
550
Avg. Class:
Varies
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Waterloo Region (Breslau), Ontario — SJK offers an enriched environment of exploration and experiential learning. Through its IB curriculum, SJK provides exciting experiences and guides students to discover their talents and passions. Go beyond at SJK. View School Profile.
Grades:
JK to 12 (Coed)
Type:
Progressive, International Baccalaureate
Tuition:
$19,720 to $73,700
Living:
Day/Boarding
Enrollment:
470
Avg. Class:
10 to 17
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Ajax, Ontario — Cambridge International Academy offers an enriched curriculum from grades 1 to 12 in Ajax. Central to the school’s philosophy is the belief that students learn best both inside and outside the classroom. View School Profile.
Grades:
1 to 12 (Coed)
Type:
Progressive
Tuition:
$10,650 to $38,000
Living:
Day
Enrollment:
0
Avg. Class:
6 to 12
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Rosseau, Ontario — Through extraordinary learning opportunities rooted in meaningful outdoor education experiences in our unique natural environment, RLC graduates develop the skills, knowledge and confidence to take on any challenge. View School Profile.
Grades:
6 to 12 (Coed)
Type:
Progressive
Tuition:
$11,350 to $66,300
Living:
Boarding/Day
Enrollment:
120
Avg. Class:
15 to 18
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Toronto, Ontario — Prestige School offers programs from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 12 in Toronto. Its average class size is 10 to 18 students. View School Profile.
Grades:
PS to 12 (Coed)
Type:
Traditional
Tuition:
$14,500 to $18,000
Living:
Day
Enrollment:
290
Avg. Class:
12 to 18
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Maple, Ontario — Balanced Academics, Arts, Athletics & Student Wellness. We value best practices & evidence-based approaches. University preparatory & 21st Century Tech-Rich & Future Proof school. Enriched and rigorous curriculum. View School Profile.
Grades:
PS to 12 (Coed)
Type:
Traditional, International Baccalaureate
Tuition:
$15,500 to $19,500
Living:
Day
Enrollment:
200
Avg. Class:
12 to 18
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Toronto, Ontario — Bond Academy is a private, co-educational, non-denominational independent school with students from Montessori Casa to Grade 12. Our educational process is Beyond the Books! Education as it should be. View School Profile.
Grades:
PS to 12 (Coed)
Type:
Liberal Arts
Tuition:
$7,000 to $16,000
Living:
Day/Boarding
Enrollment:
550
Avg. Class:
10 to 15
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Ottawa, Ontario — Elmwood School is Ottawa's pre-eminent school for girls from PreK to Gr. 12. Our high academic standards, small class sizes and safe, supportive environment ensure that each girl is inspired to reach her full potential. View School Profile.
Grades:
PS to 12 (Girls)
Type:
Progressive, International Baccalaureate
Tuition:
$15,540 to $29,700
Living:
Day
Enrollment:
370
Avg. Class:
15 to 17
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Toronto, Ontario — Our vision: Encourage life-long Georgians ready to use their scholarship, compassion, conscience and courage to make a difference. Our mission: To challenge and inspire each boy to become the best version of himself. View School Profile.
Grades:
3 to 12 (Boys)
Type:
Progressive
Tuition:
$35,880
Living:
Day
Enrollment:
447
Avg. Class:
16
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Ontario eSecondary School (OES) offers fast, flexible and fully online courses supported by certified staff with free 24/7 tutoring. 8/10 of our students achieve over 85% in their course(s).
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Canada’s only independent, Catholic school for boys in Grades 7-12, taught in the Basilian tradition of forming the mind, body, and soul. Since 1852, we have educated students in goodness, discipline, and knowledge.
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Reputed Diverse Traditional Day School. 100% of students graduate and move on to excel in their Post Secondary Education and life.
Extremely positive, caring, and knowledgeable teaching staff.
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Northstar Montessori offers an accredited Montessori curriculum from Toddler age to Grade 8. Our goal is to develop strong character and contributing citizens who understand that their involvement makes a difference.
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Markham, Ontario; IB School; OSSD; OSSD online credit course; NOIC ACADEMY’s annual university enrolment rate is 100% and more than 85% of graduates are admitted by University of Toronto.
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First school of its kind in the world. We are unique in everything we do. It is time for thinking outside of the box and raising a new generation of leaders, innovaters, inventors and entrepreneurs.
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Waterloo Independent Secondary School's emphasis is academics and university preparation. Courses are designed to engage students in projects as a window into the real world. Up to 16 students per class.
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Keystone students become internationally-minded inquirers, who ask questions and seek their own answers from both local and global perspectives. By nurturing students’ natural curiosity, we foster a love for learning.
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Our lower school students begin studying Cambridge English, Mathematics, and Science. In the upper school, students continue their Cambridge studies through IGCSE and A Level, while earning credits towards their OSSD.
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Edelweiss Private Academy offers elementary education to students with ASD and other exceptionalities, maintaining small teacher to student ratios. We promote strong academic, physical and social-emotional development.
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Beginning in Grade 8, our unique Shawnigan journey purposefully guides students through a distinct, unparalleled and bold educational experience on our stunning waterfront campus on Canada’s beautiful West Coast.
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Providence Academy is the only Private French Catholic School offering a trilingual program of study in Ontario with classes from nursery to grade eight. Tuition: $8,800-10,300. Extracurricular activities: $600-$650.
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The King's College experience develops in students responsibility, accountability, and ownership of their own learning and a passion for making a difference. Students can attend in person or synchronously online.
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Our friendly, helpful and inclusive environment makes us unique! TBC cultivates respect. We expect our students to work hard, to think critically and creatively. A parent coined it a "Boutique School". Proud to be.
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Miss Edgar's & Miss Cramp's School offers a Tier 1 education for girls from K-11, located in Westmount, Qc. We develop bold leaders and creative thinkers — equipping each girl to be the entrepreneur of her own future.
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Enriched spaces to explore and innovate, students are eager each day to learn and grow. With direct access to teachers, success is within reach. Local and global students all embrace Signet as a home away from home.
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TA’s award-winning faculty are recognized for their innovative teaching practices, learners are engaged, and diversity is celebrated. TA students work collaboratively and independently to reach their full potential.
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Since 1861, The Sacred Heart School of Montreal, the city’s only all-girls English Catholic high school, has been preparing girls to change the world. We offer grades 7 to 12, day school and boarding.
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Dewey’s educational goals follow the philosophies of John Dewey, preparing students through “student-centred learning" and "learning by doing", while emphasizing the cultivation of the "three New Liberal Arts".
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Virtual High School has been a trusted leader in online education since 2001. We help over 8,000 students succeed each year with fully online, self-paced courses and unparalleled student support.
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Astolot Educational Centre is a day school with grades 1 to 12 in Ottawa, Ontario. Classroom teacher-student ratios are 1 to 10. Students have the ability to reach their full potential with Astolot programming.
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Columbia International College is Canada’s largest private boarding school, offering Grade 9 to 12 programs.
#1 in scholarships awarded by universities.
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Guidepost is a new Montessori school coming to Toronto, serving children from 10 weeks to 12 years old. We offer year-round programming and rolling admissions into our programs to meet the needs of every family.
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Carrey Education is one of the top choices for parents as it provides academic programs tailored for individual students. Our goal is to help students build their character and discover new interests through learning.
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ATI is a school for ambitious teens who want to develop into independent, curious, self-motivated individuals who thrive in school and in life. Gain the skills, knowledge and agency to build the future that you want.
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With a tradition dating back to 1899, St. Andrew's remains the single largest all-boys boarding school in Canada. Our 126-acre campus provides our students with an ideal setting for learning and growth.
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Trafalgar Castle offers a close-knit, academically challenging environment where girls feel a strong sense of belonging and discover their unique talents and interests.
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Blyth Academy The Glebe focuses on personalized education, small class sizes, and strong student support for Grades 9-12. Big experience in a small school! Part of community of nine Blyth Academy campuses in Ontario.
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This may sound like science fiction, but such technology has arrived in the digital realm of the Internet, and signs point to this media becoming widely accessible in the coming years. According to a recent study, U.S. sales of virtual goods, a broadly defined category that includes software and digital services, have increased fourfold over the past two years and are expected to top $1.6 billion (U.S.) in 2010. (The global market is expected to hit $5.5 billion.)
One of these virtual products is Second Life, freely downloadable software that incorporates a rich array of virtual reality components, providing users with an enhanced sense of immersion or "realism." Using a three-dimensional digital environment, real-life individuals explore and interact using a customized avatar or animated 3-D body. What distinguishes this world from other virtual reality applications is that Second Life is user-defined; real people buy virtual land from Linden Labs, which created Second Life, and use their avatars to build their own simulated reality.
Many simulations mimic real life; others seem to come straight out of Alice in Wonderland. Once "in-world," players can use the search tool to find other virtual worlds for their avatar to teleport between, including Mayan ruins, modern Paris, and even Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
Read our in-depth articles on online learning in schools
As an educational tool, Second Life's versatility in allowing students to use abstract knowledge within a simulated context increases the chance of gaining knowledge through "active" opportunities, so is conducive to long-term learning. While more gifted learners may interpret abstract concepts readily from text, the addition of speech, music, pictures, video, simulated kinesthetics and interpersonal situations appeals to a wider range of learning styles. For example, a math student learning the Pythagoras theorem could calculate and create shapes with precise measurements, using this information to build a virtual pyramid. The student could then integrate a history lesson, using graphics and sound to enhance the realism, providing other virtual visitors with a guided tour through the tombs. Such a cross-disciplinary approach would enrich a student's conceptual network, providing a multitude of neural avenues to retrieve information, further improving long-term recall.
With such a vast array of environments to visit and create, Second Life provides educators with a new approach to hands-on learning; students can conduct virtual surgeries, manipulate virtual molecules, visit planets or travel back in time and interact with historical characters within the context of a foregone civilization. The possibilities are limited only by one's imagination. Second Life also has the look and feel of a video game, so appeals to students who are highly motivated to learn within this environment.
Worldwide, well-recognized universities and colleges have been creating virtual campuses to complement classroom learning. In England, medical students at London's Imperial College can now train using a fully equipped virtual hospital in which they interact with and diagnose patients, order X-rays and perform virtual surgeries. The University of Texas is incorporating all of its 16 campuses in creating the world's largest undergraduate virtual learning environment. Other institutions found in Second Life include Princeton University, Harvard University, the University of Western Ontario and the International Society for Technology in Education.
With an average of 750,000 users logging close to 4 billion hours monthly and spending $600 million (U.S.) in 2009, Second Life has become a world within a world. Its economy is very real, sporting its own currency–Linden dollars–that can be cashed out into U.S. dollars. It is an environment in which residents can explore, travel, socialize, be entertained, build and learn. However, because Second Life has a "rated R" factor and includes participants from across the globe, some with quirky idiosyncrasies, it is inappropriate for students under 18.
To minimize the risks inherent within the adult world of Second Life, Linden Labs launched Teen Second Life in early 2005, creating a virtual environment for teenagers under age 17. Teachers who seek access to Teen Second Life with their students must first submit to a background check by Interpol, their police department or Ascertain, a private company that conducts screening and investigation reports. Upon approval, a teacher's "adult world" avatar is transferred to the teen world, where it is clearly identified as adult. When a teenager turns 18, their avatar is automatically transferred out of the teen world into the adult version of Second Life.
Recently, Lower Canada College (LCC) in Montreal, Quebec, explored the educational possibilities of Teen Second Life. Interestingly, due to the game's tighter restrictions, the virtual environment evolved differently from that of the adult world. Many collaborative projects evolved between schools with shared academic objectives, and some schools joined their islands together to form larger continents. For example, Global Kids, a group committed to working with inner-city urban youth, uses virtual reality to educate students about foreign policy issues and international relations.
Skoolaborate is another collaborative project on Teen Second Life with a rapidly growing membership, with participating schools developing projects accessible to all residents, thus forming a global campus. Established by Westley Field, the director of online learning at MLC School in Sydney, Australia, the Skoolaborate community began three years ago with six schools. It has since expanded to 45 schools and educational organizations, with the participation of up to 150 teachers and 4,000 students. Skoolaborate is only accessible to students and teachers from member schools, providing an additional layer of security.
What is particularly appealing about Skoolaborate is that it was conceived with the intent of providing students and teachers with an exceptional complement of online support tools and learning resources. When a school develops a virtual reality project, it also builds an array of online training tools that are readily accessible to all residents. Given Lower Canada College's research and development in online learning, Skoolaborate provided us with an ideal venue in which to learn and share with other schools.
Last spring, LCC students began a project that promoted the learning of French. Required to read a French novella, students then rewrote several short scenes to be performed theatrically in Teen Second Life. Students built elaborate sets, acquired costumes and designed props. Other students, as part of a virtual audience, observed the performance, which was recorded and posted on the Internet. Though relatively simple, this first attempt was fun and fascinating for students. This year, LCC drama teacher Natasha Hart will join French teacher Mona Chidiac and me to enhance the performances and facilitate the production of custom-designed costumes and virtual sets.
The academic and social learning opportunities available in a virtual world such as Teen Second Life are numerous and often unexpected. For Westley Field, watching somewhat reclusive students become social butterflies in a virtual world, using their avatar's anonymity to overcome some of their social fears, has been remarkable. Academically, students' ability to design, measure, build, collaborate and then walk through their creations with friends from around the globe is another of the extraordinary learning opportunities. Rarely would you expect to hear a Teen Second Life student say, "But sir, when will I ever use these math concepts in the real world?" The conception and design of virtual reality projects provides students with many opportunities to apply abstract concepts. For those 80 per cent of students whose strength is not primarily linguistic, but rather visual-spatial, kinesthetic, logical, musical, interpersonal or intrapersonal, the richness of cues available in a virtual world provides a venue that evens the playing field for all learning styles and interests.
Read our other in-depth articles on online learning in schools |
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