Virtual School, Blended Learning, and Goodreads
I think it’s only fitting to write
about virtual school when technically I am in a virtual form of school. I’m
currently enrolled in Florida Southwestern but all of my classes are online. While
I was in high school a large majority of my peers were in Florida Virtual
School in order to make up classes and/or graduate early. Most of the students
who had difficult passing classes took a different version called Education
2020 which is essentially a form of blended learning. Senior year that I
enrolled in FLVS and Education 2020. Below is a map of the United States and it
says as of 2011; 259,928 students are enrolled in some form of Virtual School
in Florida. Which makes it the most enrollment of all 50 states.
Virtual School
In my
senior year high school took away honors programs to try to motivate Honors
students to either take Advanced Placement classes or Dual Enroll at FSW. This
plan back fired for the school because about 30% of honors students dropped out
of dual enrollment or AP classes due to difficulty and work load. In my case
they put me in a regular English class and I lacked motivation. My advisor
suggested I take English 3 Honors through FLVS. My teacher organized the class
in such a way that really helped me stay engrossed in learning. She made fun
and inventive ways to help me improve my writing. Most of the books in the
class I had read already so at first I thought the class would be a joke but
after the assignments and her weekly phone calls with my mom and myself it made
me really feel like by teacher cared compared to some of my teachers in public
school. Granted my virtual school teacher could also teach from anywhere in her
PJ's so what teacher wouldn’t be happy as a clam teaching from home or another
country?
Blended Learning
Most
students in my high school who were in blended learning were usually who had
difficulty in a normal classroom setting or were super seniors. I ran out of
academic classes that I felt I could benefit from and I didn’t want to be one
of those seniors taking 3 Physical Education classes so my adviser suggested
taking E2020 to bring up my GPA. So I took 3 classes in a matter of a month. I
wish I had taken E2020 over the summer throughout high school so I could have
graduated sooner and graduated with a better GPA. The class was divided very similar to a
regular class but it lacked creativity. You read the chapter, watched a little
video, answered a little review and then took a test once you finished every
section. It was the most simplistic way to get through the information, but I
learned nothing. I just improved my GPA. I honestly couldn’t tell you anything
about biology and Algebra which has been made apparent now that I’ve proceeded
to take Biology and Algebra in college. So all though blended learning was
effective when it came to teaching me enough to get through high school I didn’t
take much from the course besides how to write a paper while listening to
music. While virtual school I learned how to actually improve my writing and
research.
Goodreads
Interestingly
enough I signed up for this site about a year ago to read a Star Wars Novel and
never understood the concept of this site. Besides the description in the book
I took it upon myself to stop researching sites on my phone. Essentially the
site is a form of social media for you to Research books you want to read and
review books you have read in order to form a wider form of a book club. Instead
of going to your nerd friends about reading Harry Potter series for the 3rd
time you could find a series you are interested based on all the books you’ve
ever read and what you liked or disliked about them. My only issue I had with
the site is that it has a list of books and where they can be purchase but I’m
a cheapskate and I like to find my books in free PDF form online. I would like
it more if users could submit PDF files of the books they’ve read so others can
read them. Of course this brings up the debate of the price of print. If books
are free how to authors receive the money they deserve for the popularity of
their series. But the major pro for this site is you could offer
recommendations for students if they like the books or stories we read in
class. They’ll also be given the opportunity to have their opinion heard by
people around the world.
Attributions
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Good Reads. (n.d.). Goodreads. Retrieved April 24, 2016, from https://www.goodreads.com/
Attributions
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Good Reads. (n.d.). Goodreads. Retrieved April 24, 2016, from https://www.goodreads.com/
