teach1st
08-14-2005, 06:31 AM
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002440207_online14m.html
Midmorning at Federal Way's Internet Academy, the hum of the air conditioner fills the school's one classroom. Just four students tap at keyboards while one teacher talks on the phone.
The quiet, however, is an illusion. This storefront school, wedged among mortgage, insurance and health-care firms in a suburban strip mall, is at the center of a boom in online education.
Behind the academy's front counter, a Washington state map illustrates the speed and range of the academy's growth, which parallels state and national trends. Nine years ago, the program opened with an enrollment of 30, all residents of the Federal Way School District. Today, thousands of pins mark towns across the state where its students live, from Forks to Chewelah, from Trout Lake to Brewster. Last school year, about 1,500 students took one or more classes.
Statewide, 10,161 Washington students — mostly in high school — took one or more online classes for credit last school year, more than triple the number four years ago, according to a survey done by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. One of the first virtual public schools — the Florida Virtual School — served about 21,000 students.
Internet classes, a trickle in public schools a decade ago, are rapidly joining the education mainstream — so quickly that it's unclear what all the ramifications may be.
Critics worry about the social interaction students miss when they sit in front of a screen to learn — not just socializing, but the give-and-take of classroom debate and discussion. And not all online classes offer good instruction.
"There's a lot of junk out there," said Sally Lancaster, head of alternative programs in the Everett School District, including its online high school.
Read more (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002440207_online14m.html)
Midmorning at Federal Way's Internet Academy, the hum of the air conditioner fills the school's one classroom. Just four students tap at keyboards while one teacher talks on the phone.
The quiet, however, is an illusion. This storefront school, wedged among mortgage, insurance and health-care firms in a suburban strip mall, is at the center of a boom in online education.
Behind the academy's front counter, a Washington state map illustrates the speed and range of the academy's growth, which parallels state and national trends. Nine years ago, the program opened with an enrollment of 30, all residents of the Federal Way School District. Today, thousands of pins mark towns across the state where its students live, from Forks to Chewelah, from Trout Lake to Brewster. Last school year, about 1,500 students took one or more classes.
Statewide, 10,161 Washington students — mostly in high school — took one or more online classes for credit last school year, more than triple the number four years ago, according to a survey done by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. One of the first virtual public schools — the Florida Virtual School — served about 21,000 students.
Internet classes, a trickle in public schools a decade ago, are rapidly joining the education mainstream — so quickly that it's unclear what all the ramifications may be.
Critics worry about the social interaction students miss when they sit in front of a screen to learn — not just socializing, but the give-and-take of classroom debate and discussion. And not all online classes offer good instruction.
"There's a lot of junk out there," said Sally Lancaster, head of alternative programs in the Everett School District, including its online high school.
Read more (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002440207_online14m.html)