I recently had the opportunity to learn more about Virtual High School (VHS) from Carol Arnold of Arnold Communications. This is the second installment of a three-part interview.
What Virtual High School programs are currently available for students in the Richmond and the state of Virginia?
Currently, VHS has nine member schools in Virginia. Some are traditional VHS members in that they have agreed to free up a teacher for one period per day to be trained in and teach a VHS course, while others are student-only members in that their only participation is students taking VHS classes. Most, if not all, of these schools have a minimum of 25 student seats in VHS per semester.
Are programs 100% distance or do you use blended modalities?
Traditional VHS courses are 100% distance however, we do encourage schools and train them in how to conduct blended learning courses through our 21st Century Best Practices teaching courses. In addition, we are presently spearheading a project with high schools in Brooklyn, which uses a blended approach.
Carol shared with me about a successful collaborative project between the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) and Virtual High School. The grant-funded New York City Opportunities for Online Learning (NYCOOL) pilot project was designed to bring 21st century education to New York City schools through a blended mode class. The “Digital Literacy for the Digital Age: ICT Skills for the 21st Century” course was delivered on-site at eight high schools and taught online collaboration skills, communication and web publishing. The class featured various online projects including creating del.icio.us social bookmarking sites, contributing to wikis and using Flickr and Mixbook photos for visual aids.
What are your plans to increase the organization’s impact in this area?
Our plans include expanding our membership so that more students can benefit from VHS. In addition, we are heavily focused on our professional development courses and expanding enrollment for those so that we can help to advance all education.
Read the rest of the interview to learn more about Virtual High School:
Part One: Virtual High School: VHS and distance-learning
Part Three: Virtual High School: Challenges to distance-learning
For further reading:
Virtual High School: A world of learning opportunities
Virtual High School
NYCOOL
Arnold Communications
© 2009 Cindy Wolfe
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