Posted on 07/22/2008 6:45:54 AM PDT by Amelia
The University of Hawaii at Manoa, Kapolei High School, isisHawaii and Ainoa, Inc. have partnered to launch UHM SEED Academy, a new public 'bricks and clicks' high school offering a blended curriculum of core, Advanced Placement, and world language courses taken online and hands-on STEM electives in science, technology, engineering and math taught on-campus at Kapolei High School. The UHM SEED Academy is a high-quality, innovative alternative to the traditional school experience and is currently enrolling students tuition-free for the 2008-09 school year, which begins August 11.
The combined online and face-to-face curriculum provides students enrolled at UHM SEED Academy at Kapolei High School the benefits of a flexible schedule, while maintaining a high-quality education. Courses are taught by experienced teachers who provide small-group instruction and individualized feedback to help students master course material. Students also benefit from ongoing interaction with teachers and peers via online and on-campus lessons and face-to-face lab and field activities....
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Bump, this seems interesting and worth following up on.
I thought that said "Bricks and Chicks"
Not that would've been some kind of school!
In many states a high school student can dual enroll at a state college and have a very similar experience. Classes can be taken on campus or online, and you earn high school and college credit at the same time (tuition free.)
I know many homeschoolers who have opted for this. They graduate high school and earn their AA at the same time, plus they have the freedom to schedule classes when they want and not be stuck in a high school for hours everyday.
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/cclo/dual.html
ping for later
Very appealing to teenaged boys, for sure! :-)
Our state offers the dual enrollment, and we also have Georgia Virtual School which offers online HS classes.
In some ways, Georgia is very advanced.
We have a very similar high school here at Fresno State University. It’s called University High School. Very cool alternative to a regular public high school experience.
The wave of the future.
I think it will only be a few more decades before the idea of going to a campus and sitting there for four or five years will seem like driving a horse and buggy.
There is no longer a need for the educational structure we have now. It may continue because people want it to, but the original purposes for gathering people together on a campus (such as the fact that books were available mostly in great libraries) no longer exist.
I’ll be interested to see how this school works. But BTW, several school districts on the mainland have had online options for years.
I have taken classes in both venues. For some subjects, I prefer online instruction, and in other cases I found face-to-face interaction preferable.
I tend to think that with small children, and for some subjects, face to face interaction with the teacher is better, if for no other reason than the teacher can see a look of confusion when the child doesn't understand and the brightening expression when the student "gets it".
For older and more motivated students, online is wonderful.
Are they getting good results, and are there waiting lists?
While I applaud lower cost methods of instruction (online teaching), the potential for cheating is greater with this venue.
I have my “online” students complete a FTF (Face to face) midterm & final, to control this problem. I can get a picture ID, and assign grades to actual student enrollees - not a hired gun, their dad or bother, or other 3rd party who might be taking the tests or submitting other work products over the Web, for the actual student who has paid them or etc.
These programs are open to rampant cheating, if some type of FTF proctored testing, ID check, or other safeguards are not instituted.
typo:
their dad or bother = their dad or brother (or older sister, or room mate, or etc)
I see your point about someone else doing the work.
Our son did dual credit and took his classes on campus (he went all three years from 10th-12th and graduated with his AA and high school diploma at the same time.)
I think he took a Humanities class online, though. The teacher gave open book tests, but they were designed so that you’d have to know the material, even with the book open, lots of questions in a short amount of time. I suppose one could have gotten someone else to take the test, but they’d have to know the material.
It was a class with a minimum word requirement (in Florida they call them Gordon Rule classes) so there were lots of papers he had to upload for the term.
That was the first time I was aware there was the online tool, Turnitin.com. All papers had to be submitted to turnitin.com as well as uploaded to the prof. They matched the paper against web content, so that students couldn’t just cut and past a paper from another source. But there again, that wouldn’t stop a family member from writing the paper.
Our son’s in grad school now (a GA) so he runs into undergrads that try to play the system, even in classes on campus. He’s had them tell him they came to class but the door was locked (when in truth there was a whole class full of students meeting at that time) or try to get excused from a mandatory test time because of an excuse note from a physician, only to find the note was on stolen stationary.
What amazes me is all the sites online one can upload their homework to and have it done for a fee. If those profs are testing, then how do the kids pass the test if they didn’t really do their homework?
Good points about the cheating...I wondered how they dealt with that.
ping for later
At what age are they permitted in the dual enrollment program?
I have been reading “The World is Flat” by Tom Friedman. He says that a few years ago math on-line tutoring began in India and in only a few years is a **thriving** business employing thousands of Indian teachers.
Well....Why not have virtual on-line elementary, middle, and high schools with Indian tutors?
These Indian teachers are **very** well educated and extremely professional. And...They work for $200 a month!
Private tutoring is much, much more efficient than institutionalization in a brick and mortar school. I've never met a homeschooling child who has spent more than 2 to 3 hours in formal studies. So...I think it would be possible to have personal teacher for a child ( year round) for very little money a day.
The tutor uses real-time telecommunications with video cameras. So they talk directly one-to-one with the child. Work is faxed to the teacher, or scanned and sent by e-mail. A lot of the work is completed on the computer and e-mailed for correction.
Bright children could zoom ahead. Slower children could take the time they need without getting frustrated and discouraged.
That’s all very thought-provoking.
I just read Arthur Herman’s “How The Scots Invented the Modern World and Everything In It.” One point relevant here was how universities developed in the first place-—knowledge simply wasn’t very portable (either books or professors), and it certainly wasn’t transportable digitally or telephonically.
The main thing that will hold back the transformation of K-12 public education is that too many parents (whether they admit it or not) rely upon it as day care, in addition to education. It’s a paid for and generally convenient place to park the kids during the day, and they more or less get an education to boot.
College, however, is mostly a joke these days and before too long, bright and ambitious young people will realize they need not subject themselves to the traditional “four year sit-on-butt” time. They will find other ways to pursue excellent and personalized educations, all the while also developing their entrepreneurial enterprises or otherwise working to jumpstart their careers.
We homeschool our children now and I’m interested to look into what you posted about the Indian tutors.
P.S. If you haven’t read it, you might be interested in a book called “The Bell Curve.” It has some pretty profound data relevant to the education bureaucracy in it. Once the implications are digested, it’s clear that we need to do more to let the truly gifted soar.
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