Blog Post 13 Option 2

My Teacher is an App

     I recently read an article by Stephanie Banchero and Stephanie Simon entitled "My Teacher is an App". In it we learn that students are taking more of their core curriculum online. In thirty states students can take their entire class load from the comfort of their own home. In some places students are still required to still attend a school, but upon arrival they take most if not all their classes online.
   
     Students in these environments get the opportunity to use technology that is already familiar to them and use tools that will enables them to prepare themselves for the modern day workforce. We have already discovered that the students of today are studying to perform jobs that do not even exist yet. Look what has changed in the last twenty five years. Everyone has a home computer and most if not all of a household knows how to use it. When I was in school my classroom had one computer and we were proud of it. It was an Apple II. We could word process and play simple games like Number Muncher and Oregon Trail. It sure beat typing papers on the typewriter in the corner of the room.

      The world is changing at an exponential rate. Technology today will obsolete in ten years. We must allow ourselves to continue to learn these new technologies, and what better way than the virtual classroom. Students have the ability to learn on their own and can teach themselves. They can and will use the technology anyway, so why not use the tech to teach? It is a splendid way to give students problem solving abilities and it attributes to creativity, but the "jury is still out" on its abilities to teach.

     Teachers that educate through online services may be responsible for more than 250 students, where as teachers in traditional schools may be responsible or 150. This makes it hard for teachers and students to communicate in a timely manner. It is frustrating to students that need help to have to wait for their questions to be answered so they can complete their tasks on time and with the desired results.


     The ability for students in the cyber classrooms to perform on standardized testing is also in question. After some students that were primarily taught online were tested against students from traditional schools the results showed that the tech students did worse in most subjects especially math and reading. Though online only schools seem to be an excellent alternative, the facts show otherwise.

     This problem has been all but solved in a new school in Miami called the I Prep Academy. Though it is only in the test stages, students have done well in this new and technologically savvy environment. The school merges online learning with regular lectures. The students have flexible schedules in order to focus more energy on problem areas, and teachers have the freedom while students are learning online to give one on one instruction to students that fall behind. There are no regulated classes or mandated schedules.  Students have the freedom to hold their future in their own hands and let their teachers be a guide to achieving success.

     Will this virtual school provide all the answers? I don't think so, but I believe we are on the right track. Schools have changed so little in the last three hundred years. Online learning has had only a couple of decades. It takes time to work out the bugs in a system that has to introduce new technology all the time. I believe that we must find a happy medium between the old and new. We cannot expect all students to take to the new just as we cannot expect all students to except the old. We must structure our classrooms to help all students to aspire for greatness. We must allow ourselves to be free-thinkers. We must enable ourselves to see the big picture. No one likes change, but we must be able to do just that. We are not trying to become teachers for ourselves. We want the chance to share our knowledge and experiences with students in order to better their lives. Whether in the classroom or the computer, we must be prepared for an unknown future and be ready to be the educators that these future students will need in their corner.