awareness. Vars and Beane (2001) concluded that almost without exception, students
engaged in an integrative curriculum fare better than students in a conventional
departmentalized program. Their position is based on the results of various standardized
achievement tests designed for the traditional content driven instructional approach.
Bransford and his colleagues (2004) later reaffirmed that instructional technology tools
were not only vehicles to find information, but should be a platform for social
interactions that can support student learning. These research findings support the
correlation made by Newmann, Bryk and Nagaoka (in Lemke, 2005) between student
learning and meaningful, relevant and intellectually stimulating work.