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October 8, 2008

Online classes spreading in county schools

Anonymous The Cullman Times Wed Oct 08, 2008, 08:03 PM CDT

By Trent Moore

Staff Writer

WEST POINT — Brooke Kelley is taking a psychology class at West Point High School — even though the course is not actually offered on the campus.

The high school junior is among approximately 25 other West Point upperclassmen taking part in the state-wide ACCESS (Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators and Students Statewide) program, funded by state grant money.

West Point High School and Hanceville High School are already equipped for ACCESS, with the remainder of the schools in the county set to be online by the start of the 2009 school year.

Cullman County Schools Technology Coordinator Bruce Ellard said the project utilizes technology to offer high school students a wider variety of classes.

“The purpose is to give students in Cullman and across the state the opportunity to take courses not available locally,” he said. “We offer some advanced courses and give students additional opportunities for remediation, as well as credit recovery opportunities.”

WPHS teacher Derrick Waddell said the process is actually quite simple.

“The teacher is somewhere else, and puts the lessons and tests and everything online,” he said. “Then the students just log in and go.”

Kelley said she is glad to have been afforded the option to take a course outside of the available curriculum.

“Yeah, I’m glad I had the option,” she said. “It’s pretty easy to follow.”

West Point High School Principal Darrell Brock said the program, which was installed toward the end of last school year, is going well.

“It’s working out well for us,” he said.

Brock said he likes the program because it gives his students more diverse learning opportunities.

“They’re taking all types of different things, things we can’t offer,” he said. “Classes we normally wouldn’t be able to do, because we don’t have enough students to justify the class.”

Hanceville High School Principal Bob Burgess said the program proved very useful last year in helping students recover credits for graduation.

“Last year, students who failed a class in the first semester, if it’s something we don’t offer in the second semester it’s a way for them to pick that up,” he said. “They’re not time sensitive, and most of our seniors have open periods, and they can use an elective period and work on it everyday. We have that as a back-up plan if needed again this year.”

The ACCESS program offers both online classes, and real-time distance learning courses via video-conferencing.

Burgess said the online classes are useful, though some scheduling problems would need to be addressed before the multimedia classes can be fully utilized.

“It’s a good thing, but as far as being used to the extent I would like to see it used, the biggest hang-up is scheduling,” he said. “Especially for the video-conferencing classes, our bell schedule has to match theirs. With multiple kinds of schedule systems around the state, it’s really hard to find a school that matches with our period schedule. ... Until someone address that issue system to system, it’s going to be difficult to make that work.”

Ellard said the program should offer a wealth of different subjects to Cullman students.

“There is basic to advanced math, English courses and social study courses,” he said. “Foreign languages are some of the more interesting courses. Our students will have opportunities to take Latin, or even Mandarin Chinese.”

Even with the all the different subjects being offered online, Kelley said a true, live class is still hard to beat.

“It’s cool,” she said. “But, I’d still rather have a teacher telling me how to do it.”

‰ Trent Moore can be reached by e-mail at trentm@cullmantimes.com, or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 225.

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