So as a recent laid off teacher (unfortunately) I have begun the great job search for next year. While searching, I found something that I thought you all might find interesting. It is called K12. It is a free, online public school which uses real teachers to deliver curricula to students. In high school teachers give online lectures, they work with students individually, and they hold office hours. Students spend about 5-6 hours a day on coursework. For elementary school it looks like it is sort of a home school situation. It says parents should expect to spend 3-5 hours a day supporting their student's education.
I think this prospect of an online school is interesting, I am curious where it is going though. In the future will all schools be online? Will all homes have access to computers and high speed internet so that students can have equal access to online schools? There are definitely ups and downs to this whole idea. A major down right away is that many parents cannot work with their elementary school child long enough to make this work. There are also issues because I don't really see how students would participate in group work. This being said, perhaps if students are in virtual classes they get each others emails and phone numbers and do projects together? This would be pretty cool potentially (I am not really sure how it works, I am going to look more into it, but I couldn't find answers to my questions right away.
I thought of an Archie comic that I read once. They were showing how in the future there would be virtual schools and the kids thought it was really neat because they could get up later and go to school in their pajamas, but then they started thinking about things like (Archie) no girls, no prom, no sports, no theater, and generally no socializing. That being said, I think there are many kids these days who just want to get through school and don't care about those things. I was one of them! Now that I am older I regret not doing more fun social stuff in high school, but at the time I could have cared less. I know that many of the students at the school at teach at (this year, ha!) feel the same way. The web site also said that it is targeted at kids who are struggling, kids who are going too fast for their regular classes, kids who are home schooled, have military parents, or who are home bound. All of these things make sense for why a kid would take an internet course. Part of the reason that I like online classes is because I have a family and don't always have time to go to UNM to take classes. With the rate of teen pregnancy, it is possible high school students sometimes have this issue too.
I am going to explore the K12 web site some more. I am finding out some pretty interesting things. With the overpopulation of schools (sometimes not enough desks for the kids) maybe online schools are something of the future. Imagine the possibilities if schools didn't have to spend so much money maintaining a building. Wow, think of the implications. No heating, air conditioning, lights, maintenance.... states could save a lot of the money that is currently spent on education. With all the savings maybe they could afford to give scholarships to the kids that needed computers or internet? Of course, once again, the downside is that not all kids are self-motivated enough to attend an internet class that they don't have to be at (though I think that this would happen mostly in high school, in which case those kids ditch real classes so I don't know if there would be much of a difference) and I don't know if this could work for elementary because not all parents can supervise so much. It is an interesting concept though. I applied for a job at one of these, so who knows, maybe I will get to find out even more about how this works. For now I am going to surf their site some more and see what I can find out!
Thank you for this resource. I do think most learning will eventually be done online. Because my focus is in higher ed, I definitely believe most programs will go online. Think of the savings of resources: gas and electricity especially. I think most kids are growing up with computers and internet-based phones, so they're independent learners from the start. Instead of asking mom how to spell a word, for example, kids willingly look it up online. I'm not sad about this - I enjoy learning online and I actually learn better online. The focus of school shifts from the social focus to the content... ~ Linda
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry that you're on the job hunt. Good luck, and I hope you find something quickly. While I definitely see the need for online learning formats for older students, and as you wrote in the newer post, I'm not sure its use can be similarly applied to younger children--elementary age. I've been noticing that homeschooling seems to be gaining traction lately and with that families are using digital texts to support their lessons. Although, interestingly, this new homeschooling movement seems to be in families where the children would have most likely been as successful in school. I question where this leaves other students. However, I do think it does open new experiences for students who are limited in terms of living in a very rural environment, or those who are have limited physical abilities. It is definitely an interesting question...
ReplyDeleteI am beginning to consider retirement in my not-too-distant future. I have a real good educationally related friend I met when I worked for UNM Career Services as a receptionist who went on to become dean of students at TVI/CNM and agai on to a vice-presidency for a chain of colleges. We have discussed education on many different levels including digital courses and online colleges. It appears to be something I could do once I retire. It has the benefit of NOT traveling in to work. I could stay at home in pajamas. I could check in and do student work any time I had the energy. Could take frequent naps. Make a bunch of one-time video lessons and reuse them over and over and not have to be present at all and still get paid every time the video lesson was accessed into pertuity. WOW! Sounds like royalties for music and authorship where money pours in for years long after the work itself has ended.
ReplyDeleteSome of these ideas makes this kind of education appealing to those of us who get tired of the social interaction, distress, stress, and distraction of the day-to-day grind of abusive students in inefficient and under-supplied classrooms with their health issues, potential violence, personal risk, and the threat of lawsuit by a disgruntled parent (all of which I have dealt with over the course of just 8 years of teaching mostly at the elementary level).
A classroom with limited risk or physical threat of any kind has its perks and unique advantages! True the social aspects are diminished, but can't there be some soluton to these short-comings of not seeing another human in the "room"?
Definitely something worth considering, especially when cnsidering the other types of retirement I might consider, i.e. the abused job of a substitute teacher!