A free collection of online field trips and other web-based learning materials has been shown to boost reading levels and help improve test scores among middle-school students, according to the results of a scientifically based research study from Maryland Public Television (MPT).

Approximately 400 seventh and eighth graders from two Maryland public middle schools--one urban, one rural--participated in the study, which took place during the 2003-04 school year and was released in late April. The study showed that seventh and eighth graders who used three online field trips--each specifically developed by MPT for social studies and language arts--scored higher on a national standardized reading comprehension test than those who used traditional learning methods alone.

Though relatively small in size and scope, the study's findings could have national implications for educators who embrace the internet as a tool for learning, executives at the nonprofit television station believe. Every teacher across the country, they say, can access these same resources at no cost by logging on to MPT's educational web site, www.thinkport.org.

"The study shows that some of the new ways we are teaching with technology are helping our students to succeed," noted Cathy Townsend, principal of Salisbury Middle School, one of the study's participants.

Specifically, the control-based experiment showed that use of the online field trips in classroom instruction improved students' reading performance on the Gates-MacGinitie Standardized Reading Test--a popular K-12 assessment used in several states.

"Students who used the [electronic field trips] performed better on the unit tests than the students using only traditional methods," researchers found. Results also showed improved reading comprehension among poor and economically disadvantaged students.

The news bodes well not only for MPT, but for hundreds of educational service providers and nonprofits that have begun offering online field trips and other digital media, including streaming video, as a substitute for the first-person experience.

Across the country, teachers increasingly are turning to the internet to provide students with glimpses of places they might not otherwise have the opportunity to see. Students in rural Nebraska, for instance, now can visit New York's famous Bronx Zoo without ever leaving their classrooms or begging their parents to sign a permission slip. Another popular virtual tourist attraction, Colonial Williamsburg, gives students the chance to chat live with historians and observe what life must have been like during the Revolutionary War. NASA offers a similar program for aspiring astronauts and scientists.

But educators should use caution when choosing their next virtual destination, warns Suzanne Clewell, faculty associate at Johns Hopkins University and former coordinator of K-12 reading for Maryland's Montgomery County Public Schools: Not all virtual field trips are likely to produce such glowing results.