Wow!  Seems like a month since I last posted.  But it’s only been five days or so.   The term just came to an end at Kaplan, and I eagerly await the books for my next two classes.  Five classes to go and I’ll be done!

The long weekend and the Memorial Day holiday have been pretty long, but bad weather here in Texas prevented many outdoor activities.  None the less, I hope everyone had the opportunity to honor the fallen warriors, past and present. These heroes helped to provide our security, freedom and opportunity that we all enjoy today.  

Aside of finishing up this term, increasing my hours at work when I can and doing the normal family stuff, I’ve been trying to keep up with trends in distance learning.  A topic that I am seeing on a more frequent basis is high school at a distance.  On the surface, one might think that it would be a great idea.  It could be considered the next step in distance education. Furthermore, it might open doors to a new generation of students.  But then I came to my senses.

To begin with, I don’t think high school should be should be taught in its entirety at a distance.  The reason I think this way is because as someone who has experienced both on-campus high school for four years, on-campus college, and four years of distance education, I think that I’m at least somewhat qualified to say that the relationships and interactions that are missed during the course of the distance learning process is something that is crucial for the development of the younger students in high school.

Students are developing an identity, learning to interact with other students, teachers, and administrators.  These adults sometimes become very important figures in their life.  These adults have the opportunity to make a huge impact in the lives of these students.  This would not happen if high school was completed at a distance.

In general, high school students are also not always trustworthy when it comes to being left with a lot of responsibility.  When high school GPA is so crucial when applying for college, I think (in general) it would be very treacherous to entrust students with something so significant when failing at recognizing the responsibility is so easy.

As we all know, distance education is primarily geared for working adults.  The primary reasons for this is because they are usually established, responsible, and self-disciplined enough to be able to solve problems on their own.  Working adults are usually able to structure their lives around work and school.

I would not be opposed to having certain classes available online to high school students.  I think that this platform can be used to build trust and expose the students to the online learning environment.  I would want those students to maintain a very high GPA in order to qualify for the online class.  I would also want to make the class an elective.  This way, students that have shown a level of responsibility can have a higher chance of passing.

There is a lot more information available on this, but I wanted to weigh in on something that I have been seeing with an increasing frequency.  If you’re interested, do some research and form an opinion on it.  I an just reeling off some of my initial thoughts on the topic.