Just a keystroke away
Technology and the Internet offer alternatives to the brick-and-mortar school house.
October 4, 2011 • By Victoria Bensel
Filed under 2011-2012, Top Story
High school and college education in this day and age is of the utmost importance to succeed in life. As of now the majority of students are waking up to a physical-building-and-pounding-their-heads-against-walls learning environment.
These days are numbered according to a 93 page report submitted by the U.S Department of Education, which states that, ”On the basis of a more recent district survey, Picciano and Seaman (2009) estimated that more than a million K– 12 students took online courses in school year 2007–08.”
Students are turning to online courses with the promise of technology at their finger tips. By having the =World Wide Web open to them, they are rapidly excelling where they used to flounder precariously.
“Students in online conditions performed modestly better, on average, than those learning the same material through traditional face-to-face instruction,” claims the U.S Department of Education report. ”Learning outcomes for students who engaged in online learning exceeded those of students receiving face-to- face instruction, with an average effect size of +0.20 favoring online conditions.”
This study so far has proven true with higher pass rates here at Chugiak High School, where approximately 80 percent of our students pass their classes online.
The study for the Department of Education found that, on average, students doing some or all of the course online would rank in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile. This will more than likely lead to the expansion of online courses in the school districts, however this cannot replace a teacher and a classroom. There still has to be some face-to-face conversations between students and teachers.
“We still need teachers to facilitate those classes and just because it’s an online class doesn’t replace the teacher,” said Ryan Gough, an Apex and MyHigh curriculum facilitator for math and science at Chugiak High School. ”The online courses are just a curriculum. You still need a teacher in place to mold those skills, and motivate students and handle those special needs that arise.”
Online classes, however, are still not perfect. It takes a driven and well rounded student to work in these online classes.
Students at Chugiak High School taking online classes go through an initial screening process at the counselor level. The counselors evaluate whether or not the student can finish the course in time and how long they are able to work on it after school and at home. If the student cannot meet these requirements, the counselor can not allow them to continue on.
Another requirement that has been recently added to this screening process is that the parent or guardians of the student in question must have knowledge that their child is taking an online course.
They also receive weekly updates (along with the counselors) about how their child is doing, their current progress, and their grade in the class or classes being taken.
Currently, universities, and many K-12 schools, now widely use online learning management systems, like Blackboard or the open-source Moodle. But that is mostly for posting assignments, reading lists, and class schedules and hosting some Web discussion boards.
Philip R. Regier, the dean of Arizona State University’s Online and Extended Campus program thinks online education will continue to make further inroads in transforming college campuses.
“The technology will be used to create learning communities among students in new ways,” said Rogers. “People are correct when they say online education will take things out of the classroom. But they are wrong, I think, when they assume it will make learning an independent, personal activity. Learning has to occur in a community.”
