Posted on 07/24/2008 10:45:18 PM PDT by Amelia
Oddly enough, it was in a Virtual Virginia class that my daughter encountered her first instance of true high school bullying. I guess the kid didn't realize that every interaction was monitored and he came out with some nasty, taunting, very very ugly stuff. The DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION IN VIRGINIA got involved because it was so bad and the kid was expelled from the program.
For students, it has many of the benefits of home schooling, including not being subjected to the pathologies of some of their fellow schoolmates
Look for online teaching to be the next big thing to be outsourced offshore
but if everyone works from their single family home in crime free suburbia then politicians can never get the funding for their inner city light rail white elephant pork.
Pennsylvania (among other states) has Virtual Charter Schools serving elementary thru high school. Take a look at K12.com
Do you think this would work best for visual learners, or do you think it would work just as well for children with other learning styles?
Clearly that would work better for Indians than Americans....it would be awfully hard to pay the rent, much less buy groceries, on that paycheck.
I can see the cost savings, but truly I hate outsourcing anything, including the call center jobs.
As long as I have a decent shirt on, I think I'd be okay...I wouldn't be planning on any full body shots. ;-)
In addition, assignments, reading, postings, etc are done on a fairly strict guideline and even being a week behind can cause a massive pile up. Some kids couldn't handle it and dropped out. If a student is not disciplined, then on-line classes will be a disaster.
To be honest, if a parent has to be on hand and at the kids elbow to get the work done, or to monitor what is going on, the parent has done a very poor job and the on-line is inappropriate. On the other hand, it's a great way to be portable with education - kids can use their laptops and just pretty much learn anywhere
Cheating is a big problem with OL classes. You simply never know who is submitting answers or completing the virtual exams.
I teach online for a college, as well as having live (traditional face-to-face) classes.
My OL class retention rates are MUCH LOWER than my traditional FTF class enrollments. That is because the OL students are required to come to campus in person, with an ID, to complete the Midterm & the Final. So, to prevent cheating, it is more of a “hybrid” class than 100% online.
Many of my OL students later admit that they thought an OL class would be “much easier,” because there is no time wasted traveling to campus, finding parking, sitting in class, etc. Plus — they can study asynchronously, meaning at their own pace & on their own schedule.
The reality is that many OL college students are working adults, with WAAAAY too much on their plates to begin with. They mistakenly think they can “fit” one more activity onto their busy plates, — a “fun & easy” online class, in addition to a full time job, kids, other classes, and other personal responsibilities.
They fail to realize that OL classes involve many hours of study a week, just as any regular class does.
In the end, the proof of the pudding is unfortunately in the eating: when my FTF midterm is given, the effect of all of their weeks of putting off the work that would have been successfully completed were they forced (required) to attend live class meetings (due to the social pressure and imposed-rigor of a regularized class schedule) is sadly revealed.
Perhaps the solution is to allow OL classes, but with a universal exit exam such as the SAT, taken in person at proctored testing centers, after completing virtual classes.
This would be a “check” on the online process, assuring that those completing the classes were 1) actually enrolled, 2) learned the material and 3) were the ones actually completing the assignments & tests, rather than having a parent, brother or sister, or paid graduate student do the work.
I always worry when OL faculty exclaim, “my enrollment is 80 students!” While mine is 20 students. I always ask, “Do you give any tests in-person? Is your class 100% virtual?” When they say it is “100% online,” I ask, “How do you know all of these students are the ones actually taking the tests, etc.?” They always respond with something ENTIRELY lame, such as “Oh, we go on th “Trust” system!” Or, “Oh, the exams are TIMED [with narrow windows allowed for completing the work]!” — as though this arrangement prevents collusion. These instructors are deluded if they think any of these practices “prevents” cheating. A college degree is worth 100,000’s of dollars in future income streams. As gate keepers, we need to monitor the process of allocating course credit & degrees much more carefully, whether in an OL setting or a traditional classroom.
4L, Los Angeles
See! Just as I thought! Government schools really are prisons to reform the incorrigible!
Good points! And, practical suggestions for accountability.
Based on watching my daughter and her friends on the OnLine classes - I do not think they should replace the brick/mortar school, but are a supplement - a very, very valuable supplement, and would be a very poor replacement.
My experience from the online courses I've taken is that students would need to be highly motivated and self-directed to be successful in such classes.
I see online education as a valuable addition to traditional schooling, but I think it is a long way from replacing it.
what about ex-pats living in lower expense countries?
Imagine being an american teacher being able to live like a king in a country with a low living expense.
Imagine a school district housing teachers abroad in low expense countries to match the “low salary” of teachers.
I think computer training is good for the base material that has to be memorized. Essentially glorified flash cards.
What I see with the move to virtual schools is a validation to home schooling. Imagine if a public school has to compete with virtual schools ACROSS THE COUNTRY.
Thus parents could reject PC nonsense history classes and substitute a vitual correct history class from somewhere else.
That's a good point. In our school, so far it has mainly been used for high-achieving students to take courses that aren't offered at our school because there is no one available to teach them, or not enough demand.
Thanks for all the great information.
Anybody who thinks OL classes of any sort are going to be a breeze is sadly mistaken! If actually done, they are always more work and take more time. I really think the only reason to take OL classes is that the student actually wants to and is suited to learning in that way. All the “convenience” rationales, as you pointed out, really don’t wash in reality because OL courses are not something one simply fits in around gobs of other stuff.
As for cheating, I’m sure you’d agree that it occurs in FTF classes as well. However, I totally agree that using a testing center with a proctor is the way to go. There are OL classes where Kinko’s is set up to provide ID verification and proctors; it worked well in the few instances I observed it. With new ID methods (fingerprint etc.) and verification (webcams etc.), the cheating problem can be substantially overcome for those willing to subject themselves to those measures.
The real point, though, as I see it, is that the last person who should sign up for an OL class is someone who is inclined to cheat in the first place. IOW, OL classes work only for the truly motivated who want to learn, not just check a block or get by. So the process of integrating OL classes into education should actively weed out those who don’t meet that criteria.
For all the reasons you mentioned, schools (at whatever level) have a vested interest in making OL coursework as legitimate as FTF work. The degree has to mean something.
Personally, I think that while we have gone through a period in which more and more kids go to college, and there is a more and more pervasive conclusion that all kids must/should go to college, in the future, high school grads will be open to many different educational paths and employers will be more accepting of an education that we presently consider less than traditional.
There are so many ways to learn now. The internet makes knowledge available that no library in the history of education can rival. Anyone who truly wants to learn a particular subject, and who has the cognitive ability to do so, now has the means to accomplish that. That fact is going to rock the world over time. Bill Gates dropping out of college to concentrate on building computers in his garage won’t be such an isolated phenomenon.
Thank you so much for all your responses.
Because of privacy issues, we can’t do a retina scan or take a finger print of our students, over the internet, to roughly verify they are the actual respondents on quizzes and so forth.
I think that outsourcing exam assessment is the way to go — contracting with Sylvan or Kaplan
http://www.kaplan.com/kaplaninternational.htm
allowing them to process test taking in a proctored environment for a small fee for OL institutions, whether in Japan or Billings Montana (these being hypothetical locations, of student OR school)!
Thanks again,
4L
For the child who needs institutionalization, yes, I absolutely agree with you. On-line courses are a valuable addition.
For the academically successful homeschooled child, I think on-line teaching offers almost unlimited opportunities.
Hopefully we will soon see inexpensive, foreign, “out-sourced” teachers for full elementary, middle, and high school programs. I know that I would have found this very convenient. Being one of the pioneers in homeschooling, I did have quite a few false starts when it came to teaching some subjects.
If I were an Indian teacher, I would set up a paypal account. Advertise on Craig's List, and then build my professional education professional practice through the word of mouth of satisfied customers.
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