Virtual Classrooms

More advances in technology have led to the growing popularity of virtual classrooms or distance learning. The classes that are being offered for high school students in specialized and AP classes present a great opportunity for students to take classes that can’t be offered at their school for budgetary reasons. While distance learning should never replace face-to-face teaching unless necessary, it is a great new technology that is providing many new opportunities to students. I think that the more this technology is developed it can be utilized in many different classrooms. While it may be easier to integrate this technology into high school and middle school s, I think that it will also be able to be used in elementary classrooms. With further development, I think this technology can become more interactive, getting rid of the most prominent con to the idea. This is a great technological advance which can help education become more accessible to students who may not be able to make it to a concrete classroom on a daily basis.

Lefferts, JF. (2009, September 27). High school classes go virtual. The Boston Globe.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2009/09/27/nonprofit_virtual_high_school_consortium_gaining_schools_students/

National Education Standards?

An optimistic step towards a national set of learning standards is beginning to be developed. The proposal includes English and math skills that should be obtained before high school graduation. While the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 aimed to improve national scores in order to compete with other countries, I find it difficult to accurately analyze our improvement as a nation if a national test or national standards don’t exist. I think that if national standards were implemented for K-12, with a national standardized test to account for them, we would be able to create more change for our national education system and create strong improvements. With national standards it would be easy to compare state to state and help individual schools see where they need to improve curriculum and instruction. With these national standards, I think states could still create their own standards that may supplement the national one. The national standards would serve as the minimum expectations for students and could always be supplemented for an even better education. I think that these national standards would help states that are currently lacking to be more accountable for their educational scores, while at the same time providing a way to equalize education nationally.

Anderson, N. (2009, September 22). Skills set drafted for students nationwide. The Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/21/AR2009092102289.html?wprss=rss_education

Math Computer Program and Number Sense

With our growing dependence on technology, it comes as no surprise that it is continually being added into school curriculum. In Orange County, California some elementary schools are testing out a new computer program to teach math skills. While this article boasts of great student improvement on standardized tests, I am led to question what type of learning is occurring through this computer program. Is it teaching students basic math formulas or is it helping students gain number sense to better understand math concepts? I would be interested to see how this program works to teach students the math they are required to learn. Number sense is a very important part of learning math because having better number sense makes it easier for students to comprehend more difficult math concepts later on. While this program might be showing immediate improvements on standardized tests, I think the real success will show in these students’ scores in middle and high school. If they have truly mastered these elementary concepts, they should be able to do well on upper level tests as well. I am skeptical of the sole use of this program to teach math to these students, but I hope that future results of the success of this program will prove me wrong and be a great tool for teachers to help teach the math skills and number sense necessary for elementary students.

Mehta, S. (2009, September 16). Innovative math program boosts scores at o.c. schools. Los Angeles Times.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/16/local/me-santa-ana16