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This weeks' post was inspired by a question posed by Diana Maughan about whether distance education is another fad in education or if it is here to stay. The question got me to thinking about a commercial I heard on the radio for a new online charter high school here in the state of Utah. The high school is called Open High School of Utah (openhighschool.org). Below are a couple of videos about the school:
Why are Students Excited about Open High School of Utah? from OHSU Teacher on Vimeo.
I think a online charter school is a fascinating idea. The state of Utah now has a Statewide Online Education Program that allows high school students to take up to two online classes from an accredited online provider. Every student will have the option to take a couple of online classes over the traditional face-to-face classes. Students who enroll full-time into this school will be allowed to take all of their classes online. It will be interesting to see how this turns out and to see if it is successful. If a charter school like this ends up being successful and they are able to maintain a steady enrollment. We might just see online high schools popping up everywhere.
What are your thoughts?
I just ran across this school when I was researching contributors to DE. David Wiley came up for exactly this. I think it is innovative and allows so much flexibility. Teenagers have so many things going on in their lives these days. Some really need an alternative to traditional school. If I still had kids in high school, I would definitely check into it more.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I read, it sounded like it wasn't easy to get in. They hold a lottery of some kind for spots. That is a drawback I see for students if they have no control on being able to get in.
As part of my learning contract I researched online k-12 providers. There are many out there. I posted on the discussion board a list of 10 with their attributes. I found it interesting how many of them have geared a program towards state standards for individual states. There were several for Utah.
ReplyDeleteAs far as getting in I have a nephew enrolled in the Open High School. If found it very easy to get into this last fall. In the future it may become more difficult, but he didn't decided to go until a couple days before his school started in Utah County.
From sisters and her sons experience with this type of school I think it truly is going to become a major force in education.