Archive for August, 2010
This spring we received a letter from the parent of a graduating student. Her daughter had been in the public school for many years. She is on an IEP and, despite her learning difficulties was able to make a two year gain in our school this year. Her mother wrote:
“I want to thank you for a wonderful first year of virtual learning. I was very concerned it would be more difficult than it was. The programs you used were very user friendly which made learning for” my daughter “much more enjoyable. There is nothing like working from home. No lost days of education due to snow days, no distractions from other students. Virtual learning let my daughter move at her own pace, although you pushed her when she needed pushing. I was also very pleased with the fact that if she needed you for support your were readily available, or it wasn’t long before you were. …. We are looking forward to your continued support through these last 4 years of schooling. I was also very pleased with the amount of growth Kyrsha was able to make, again this is another advantage to virtual learning. There is no box limiting my child “and ” no one moving on with out my child having mastered concepts. I am so glad we made this move to virtual learning. It has been one of the best decisions I could have made for my child’s educational needs….”
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A virtual learning environment also has great appeal to parents of children with disabilities
because these schools can provide individualized programs as a pace that best suits their child’s learning, offer extensive opportunities for parental involvement, allow for the use of technology which accentuates existing assisted technology for children with disabilities,
“Technology has enormous benefits for the learning process, and promises to change the nature of schooling and heighten its productivity. Curricula, teaching methods, and schedules can all be customized to meet the learning styles and life situations of individual students; education can be freed from the geographic constraints of districts and brick-and-mortar buildings; coursework from the most remedial to the most advanced can be made available to everyone; students can have more interaction with teachers and one another; parents can readily be included in the education process; sophisticated data systems can measure and guide performance….” (Moe & Chubb, 2009).
In fact, when families were asked to identify what made a virtual learning environment especially effective for students with disabilities, these benefits where listed:
Individualized support and instruction and tutoring,
Ongoing and immediate feedback,
Self-pacing,
Opportunities for students to take control of their own learning,
Promotes students ability to choose how best to access information,
Lack of peer pressures, conflicts or distractions,
Supports alternative means of social interactions,
Equalized the the academic and social “playing field” through new technologies.
The National Association of State Directors of Special Education recently completed two studies to determine whether students with Disabilities were electing to go to a virtual school. Their findings showed that these student were as much as 14% of these students, with Individualized Educational Programs (IEP) were opting for a virtual education.
Why are more students and their families turning to Virtual Schools for their learning?Virtual schools can develop and deliver an academic program that fits the individual students’ unique learning needs. They have the potential to open new educational opportunities to children with disabilities allowing them to work alongside their peers without disabilities, provide frequent and immediate feedback, present material in a variety of ways that better suit their child’s learning style and offers more control over the learning environment such as when and where their child works.