Distance Education and Virtual Schools

1. As with everything, there are pros and cons to distance education and virtual schools. Five pros for distance education and virtual schools are:

1. Students can learn from home or anywhere! All they need is the internet.

2. Some distance education is free. The districts don't pay at all, some even make money because each student enrolled in distance education gives the district gets a certain amount of money for each student.

3. Students can do their work on their own time schedule. There is no morning bell that signifies when school begins. If a student is a morning person they can get up early and do their work then. But if a student is a night owl, then they are able to do their work at night. It is all up to the student. This brings me to my next pro for distance learning.

4. It teaches kids how to do time management to make sure they get their assignments done without a teacher reminding them. Since there is no morning or afternoon bell, it is up to the student to get all their work done with their own schedule.

5. More individualized learning can take place, as the students are able to move more at their own pace. The course syllabus and assignments are posted on the course website. This allows students to complete the assignments at their own pace. Once they finish one assignment, they can move directly to the next assignment if they are a fast-paced student. If a student needs more time on a section, then that is possible as well.



Five cons to distance education and virtual schools can be:

1. A student loses the face-face interaction with students and teachers. Their schooling is between a student, computer, and teacher. The computer aspect creates the barrier between the student and the teacher.

2. This inhibits a student's ability to work on their social skills. Students then may have a hard time being able to face the "real-world" later on in life if all they've done is distance education with virtual schools.

3. Students might not be challenged or pushed enough to get all that they can out of their learning.

4. Costs can add up depending on the program.

5. Students don't get the normal physical activity that they have when going to a normal public school. Instead they are sitting in front of a computer for hours.



2. A teacher needs to have some specific skills different than when in a classroom. One of these skills include communication. The teacher needs to be on top of their communication skills and abilities to make their class successful. If they are late in replying to threads and emails, it can impacts the student's ability to complete assignments and tests to the best of their ability. Another skill that a teacher needs to have is the ability to explain things in detail and clearly. Since they are not able to physically show the student's an example or explanation, they need to use even more detail when writing out expectations and explanations. Many teachers are knowledgeable in their content area but are not able to get this knowledge across to their students without having the student come to them daily for extra help. This kind of teacher will not work well in the distance education. I know this comes back to communication, but also includes a teacher's knowledge of their content. It takes an extra level of knowledge of their content to be able to communicate this knowledge to their students. One other skill that a teacher needs to have for a distance education is the ability to use the technology needed with confidence. Blogs, wikis, videochats, and more can be used in a virtual school. But the teacher needs to be able to work all of these programs to make it a success.



3. One thing that I found interesting and reassuring is that all teachers are certified. At least with all the programs I looked at, the teachers are certified and at least have training from the programs, if not more credibility such as a college degree. I would not like the idea of distance education and virtual schools if I knew the teachers were not accredited or had the proper training. Even though they don't have face-face interactions with the students, they still need to be able to teach as if they had a live classroom of students. The interaction and relationship still needs to be there even if through email, phone calls, and videoconferencing.



4. Two to three years from now, I can see the virtual schools and distance learning integrated even more into a public student's education. Technology is getting even more advanced and young students are wanting to be even more engaged with technology. My content is health and fitness, so I would hope that it doesn't impact my teaching much. I don't want to have to teach PE online. I would miss the student-teacher interaction. I also feel that to be a productive and effective health and fitness teacher, the student needs to be in the gym/classroom. It is hard to teach a student how to properly do a pushup without showing them physcially. P.E. is a class were physical and visual observations are necessary to be able to properly assess the students. I suppose health can be taught online, but personally I think I will prefer to teach in a classroom with live students.


5. I didn't find much information about video conferences on the sites that I went to. But if a student is doing the virtual school and digital education, then video conferencing would be a good aspect to include. This will help student-teacher interation. The student and the teacher will be able to put a face to the name, making their relationship a little more personal. It can also improve communication. If I were to do virtual school teaching, I would want to be able to use video conferencing as a way of communication with my students.