Week Three Reflections

I am glad to be here in this course, despite some difficulties. I am not "the best" online student I guess as I get caught up in venturing off - and the tangents I follow need to be tamed and better concerted to the task at hand.

I guess one of the reasons I find this process challenging is my lack of USA based K-12 educational experience. I am a Canadian and have taught abroad for all of my teaching life. I am very surprised even hearing the word "charter" school as it is something out of my working vocabulary - but not anymore. Of course I can catch the concepts - but there has been a considerable learning curve for me. An exciting learning curve - and one I need to keep working on.

I sat down with a truck load of documents from the course (I say in good humour as I love reading) and enjoyed the documents from this course. After becoming more familiar with some of the concepts and organizations in the field of virtual schooling I spent an afternoon watching news and reports on these virtual schools all stocked on youtube. I have included a link to some, a top 10 list, in a previous post on Blogger. This is news to me - less so now after a couple of weeks reading, but I really needed to get my baseline up to par. I am getting there.

Another issue, I sound like a whining student, but am not (I love the process and accept the responsibility for my own lag time) is where to post what. I do fond it a little confusing as we are on a couple different platforms - but can simply enjoy working this out. I am not sure I have it worked out 100% - but I am getting there.

I have isolated a couple of schools I will look at for my research, and will work this in to the google spread sheet in the next couple of days here. I apologize for the delay.

I will also consider two ideas for a project. I am working at a technical college in the middle east and we have technology at our dispense. One "thing" we dont have are online options. One thing we do have are issues that could be solved via virtual options. I am not discussing blended options, but virtual options. For example many of our students fail foundations English courses, and standardized English proficiency tests - virtual courses could allow students to catch up. Secondly, we are attempting to bring in liberal arts courses in the areas of: journalism, photography, and art history. Since these are new programs we do not have qualified staff. With guidance and research, I feel, basic courses could be established. These ideas are still being worked out - and feedback would be welcome.

Kindest regards to all

Stephen Pellerine