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Anchor Lead: Halo 2. Grand Theft Auto. Sim City. You may not know the names of today's hottest video games, but chances are your kids do. It seems almost every child has an X-Box or PlayStation — or knows someone who does. In the latest edition of The Learning Curve, KPLU's Kirsten Kendrick travels to the Quinault Indian Reservation and introduces us to the students of the Taholah School. They're among the first in the nation to use virtual video game technology to learn.

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Nestled in the middle of the Olympic Peninsula, just outside the Olympic National Forest, sits the tiny, ocean-side town of Taholah. Only one road leads you to this close-knit, Native American community. And that road literally ends here.

Inside Room 317 of the Taholah School, students step out of their isolated world, and into a virtual one — filled with vibrant colors and life-like objects.

Alyssa Johnston: Here's my world.

Alyssa Johnston is building a house — on her computer. With her eyes fixed on the screen, her hand moves quickly between the keyboard and mouse. You feel like you're actually inside the computer, as you watch her travel from room to room.

Alyssa Johnston: You walk in the house and you see a big ol' TV and you just want to sit down and watch it — yeah. (That's a pretty big house) I know, there's three rooms, two bathrooms and a big 'ol kitchen. I want to add on to it though, there's not enough.

Alyssa is one of 16 high school students in Tahola's Media Arts class.

Phil Braaten: You're gonna have to put your picture right above your text. Move it down.

Phil Braaten is their teacher. He says the technology is similar to a popular video game where you construct your own city.

Phil Braaten: That's usually the first thing students say when they see the program: 'it looks a lot like Sim City.' It's object-oriented environment. Pretty much go into the world, and objects have different names to them — like furniture, walls, roofs, textures.

The Taholah School is one of just 10 in the country using the virtual learning software. It's part of a project run by Cornell University's Theory Center. Each school creates its own "virtual world" that the others can enter. They even conduct live video chats with Cornell graduate students.

The goal is to get more children interested in technology, science, math and engineering. Taholah was one of the first schools to participate in 2003. It's a public school that's 95 percent Native American.

Phil Braaten: There you go, now, Control G to group it.

Braaten has seen a lot of students come out of their shells.

Phil Braaten: You know they could be right alongside someone else and academically that person might be much, much brighter but you know what, the end result is they're producing. They're coming out with a good product.

One student in particular really "took" to the class.

Phil Braaten: I mean this student, he built this enormous fortress. And it was incredible. Almost every waking minute he had in school, he was in here building. He was that motivated.

That student is 16-year-old Cody Wells.

Cody: It taught me patience. It taught me to keep going even if you mess up. And, detail — always detail.

Braaten is amazed every day at what his students can do. Especially since not all of them have computers at home.

Phil Braaten: We're working on semantic maps as part of our research project. Next thing I know, I looked over there and their maps were beautiful and I told them their maps looked beautiful on the screen. Those types of things are really relevant in order to be able to visually show things.

Cindy Ralston has a daughter in the class. She says it's an honor the school was selected for the project. But she does have one concern.

Cindy Ralson: I know that when I sit at the computer for long periods, like after 15 minutes, it gets draining. It's better if they step away from it for a little bit.

Braaten says the kids can take a break at any time. He points out they're doing more than just "staring at a screen."

Phil Braaten: They've got a lot of research and investigation. There's writing to be done. There's a certain amount of communications skills that they use. They chat with each other. We've also video conferenced with the mentors on this.

The Cornell Project is the latest effort to use video game technology to teach kids. Schools have been trying out video games in the classroom for several years. Including three school districts in Western Washington.

Studies show that video games can be useful learning tools. They have the capacity to teach reasoning, memory strategies and hand-eye coordination.

Is there such a thing as too much technology for kids? One expert says teachers like Phil Braaten face an enormous challenge.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis: I think that the bar for getting kids' attention just gets raised every year. So, I think that if he's actually able to use this to engage them in learning, it has the potential to be a really good thing.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis is an associate professor at Children's Hospital in Seattle. He conducted the first-ever study of the effects of television on young children. He says there needs to be a balance between communicating through a computer…and talking face-to-face.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis: We do need to ask ourselves, what is being lost, what are we actually sacrificing if we forego all human interaction at the expense of video technology.

Back in Room 317, Phil Braaten says this virtual technology is accomplishing that balance…with computers helping to create special moments between everyone in the classroom.

Phil Braaten: We work for those moments and those moments are real magical. I mean, particular days, everyone's having a lot of fun. Students have to be exposed to many different avenues of learning to be successful and I think it opens up doors in the end. Looks good, huh?

Kirsten Kendrick, KPLU News.