Title: “K12 Inc. to Provide Curriculum and School Services to the New Utah Virtual Academy”
Publisher: Smart Brief
September 13, 2007
PRNewswire-USNewswire
Summary- In the state of Utah, the board of education had approved a K-11 charter school that
will be taken completely online. The school will add a twelfth grade the following year. The school will be called, Utah Virtual Academy. The school will open with 500 students in September 2008. This is not the first of its kind in the US. There are others serving four other major metro areas.
Every student will have an assigned state certified teacher. They will assign lesson and will create family outings to make sure that the students are getting the additional outside experiences that would take place at a traditional school.
I can see how this would be a great opportunity to keep you child at home and not have to actually home school them. I believe that this is another way to get technology integrated into school, but it is taking the school out of everything. I think especially for Language Arts there is a piece missing by only communicating though the computer. The face to face interaction and learning language is so important to ELA. I would not want to teach a class like this to kindergarteners or even elementary students. This program should be reserved for students that are in the higher grades and have proven to the education department that they can handle and have the support at home. How can you teach a kindergartener on the computer? Won’t they miss out on something?
Even though I am not a fan of the online learning experience, it would give some students and their families the feel of going through home school. The students are given the opportunity to receive excellent instruction regardless of their location or financial situation. It allows the students and their families the flexibility to work at their own pace. This is an excellent way to integrate technology, but I think that it is missing the necessary person to person contact that Language Arts class needs.
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3 comments:
Keeping on the trend of literacy and technology, this sort of "home schooling" would do it. The students are learning online as many of us do at college. At their age though, I believe social interaction is something that should be in their lives everyday. They need to develop their communication and interpersonal skills. Also, I agree with you when you say that there is something missing. Students need to learn literacy skills through practice and they may not recieve that through a virtual school.
The person to person classroom is ancient and will not exist in the world to come. The virtual school is not new. In the past, we used to take courses by correspondence and mailed our assignments so we could spend more to time to party and swim in the Emerald seas under the Caribbean sun. The question is: who will attend that Academy? Obviously, the students who have access to a computer like we do for this class.
How many kids, kindergartners, elementary,middle and high schoolers, will miss this great opportunity?
There goes the great divide.
I agree that this might be extreme to have k-12 students earn an education online. I bet it would teach the necesary technology skills to these children, however the student to student and teacher to student interaction will be greatly missed. Also, if the students were in front of a computer all day then when would they have phys ed, or lunch with their peers? I think social interaction is a must.
Amy
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