Michigan became the first state in the nation to have students experience some form of online instruction before receiving a diploma when the state legislature on March 30 approved a bill to ratchet up the state's graduation requirements.I think Michigan is likely to be the first of many states to pass something like this. As I said previously, I don't really like "mandates" like this - I think it's a tough argument to make that this is necessary for every student to have in order to graduate. But, I do think online courses (or pieces of courses being online) are going to be more and more prevalant as the bandwidth, hardware, software and online course design/implementations improve tremendously over the next few years.
So, forget private and charter schools, this is going to be your competition. How do you think you'll compare?
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I think that we are going the right direction. With the proper training/tools and site-based help I think that this could be a really effective means of education. As far as the requirement, I agree with Karl. I am not sure that it is necessary for the state to mandate this. I do think that with things like NCLB there will be an increase in state involovement in graduation requirements. I would like to see ways that this could be used to get students to "audit" a class or find additional help for classes where they struggle. I would like to think that this group of teachers, at AHS, whould look into hwo we could use this before it becomes a state mandate.
ReplyDeleteGosh, I wonder if we could tap into it for extra moolah! I think it would be so interesting to try. I agree that it's pretty harsh to mandate it, but I think that for kids that need to work, wanted to take a course, but didn't have time in their school schedule, it would be a viable option. Plus, colleges offer so many online courses, it is essential if you are college bound.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that it should be a state mandate. I did not take any online courses because they usually offered a classroom course as another option. I think that it should be an option for high school students but I don't know if it essential to have an entire course. I think that parts of a course can be done online and still accomplish the goal of preparing students of those classes.
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