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| Online class are in. Image from NY Times |
On March 11, I went into a rant about what Tom Luna was trying to do to the education system in Idaho. One of my readers asked about information regarding online classes in high school. So I thought I would take this column to explain that situation.
Online classes are quickly becoming a new trend in the education world. Some schools are using them to offer classes that would normally never make it into the curriculum. According to
NY Times columnist Trip Gabriel on April 5, Superintendent Reze Namin used online classes to teach Chinese to the 10 students who were interested in taking it- which was a cost he would normally not be able to justify when his school is on a budget crunch.
These schools also allow students to take classes at their own pace. It can also be a Godsend for students who struggle in traditional schools. In Arizona, 13 year old Connor Valesco was the target of bullies in regular school, and as a gifted student found his niche with online classes.
The Arizona Daily Sun wrote on April 13:
Without the distractions of a traditional classroom and with the ability to set his own pace, Connor has been able to focus enough to tear through the subjects he's good at and take time on the subjects that don't come as naturally. With writing, for example, he dictates his papers into a voice recorder, and then plays it back as he types.
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| Florida student learns off computer. | |
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| Image from NY Times |
Some tech savvy schools are beginning to take advantage of online courses. According to Gabriel, in Memphis students need at least one online course to graduate. Proponents of this system say students should have an online course to compensate for its increasing presence in the college setting as well as the work place. In Arizona and
Florida, schools themselves are becoming online classrooms where computers have now replaced teachers and students are asked to learn on their own.
Right now, there is a huge debate over whether schools should pursue online classes. Proponents for online classes say it offers schools a cheap alternative to regular classes, allows students to make up work, and can offer AP courses to students wanting to take them. Opponents say online classes trade a teacher for technology, can offer remedial course work to students, and make plagiarism easy to pull off. Both the
Huffington Post and The New York Times (see first link) wrote articles outlining these pros and cons in depth as well as other arguments.
With the online world quickly invading the educational world, many schools are finding themselves staring down the barrel of change. As with the case in Idaho, experts have weighed in and put their opinions out on whether schools should embrace this type of learning and whether it is right for students. The only thing that is left to ponder is whether this type of education is right for the student or if it should be left outside the realm of education.
This was a very interesting post. You did a good job of giving out information out to your audience without overfilling them with it. Your writing was creative and kept me interested the entire time.
ReplyDeleteYour use of sources was very good. The photographs seem to be tagged correctly, as well as the news articles you used.
I also like your use of multimedia. By using photographs throughout, it created a great visual effect. I’m not sure if it was a problem with blogger or not, but try to move the third photograph over a little and make it bigger. It was hard to see what was happening. I would also have liked to seen a video covering this topic. It may have added more information to the post that you may not have covered.
For a future post, you could write about how online classes are affecting college students.