Well I have heard more about that K12 internet program. I didn't hear rave reviews. At a conference I recently went to the speaker was talking about K12 and he said that it was horrible because it didn't take into account the individual student so ESL students or struggling learners could easily be left behind. I also think that there is a huge equality factor in online programs because not all students have parents that have the time or the education to extensively help their child with school. Many students have a really hard time learning on the internet with no human contact.


On a totally unrelated subject:

My daughter's friend got a rash so I was googling to see if I could guess whether it was a strawberry allergy or chicken pox so that I could keep an eye on my daughter if it looked like something contagious. I have googled illnesses many times, and I usually find several articles and a few pictures of whatever it is that I am exploring. This time a video came up where a pediatrician talked about strawberry allergies. What was interesting relating to this class is that I had never really thought about the literacy required to google a child's illness until the video came up. When I got to thinking about it, a person has to be pretty literate to get any help from those sites, digitally and otherwise. A person needs to be digitally literate in order to navigate the computer to find what they are looking for in the first place and they must also be able to read and understand high level words in order to make meaning of what the site says about the illness. Videos, especially if they are found on a very easy to navigate site like YouTube could create some equality for those who aren't literate because really, in the digital age, everyone deserves to be able to check their child's symptoms on the internet (even if sometimes that just leads to paranoia!). I remember when my oldest son was young my parents bought me a book of common child illnesses. Every time he got sick I would refer to that book. He is only 11, and now I would never think of looking in a book to find a child's symptoms. Interesting how that works.

My question is, is it better that things are so available in video now, or do you think that videos being available to people encourage people not to practice literacy. I feel conflicted. In a way I always feel it is a little sad when audio/visual things replace texts, but in a way I like that audio/visual things might make directions, instructions and information available to everyone.