ROGERS : Internet not ideal as teacher substitute
Posted on Saturday, September 29, 2007
Internet-based learning alone can’t save rural Arkansas schools that struggle to staff their classrooms, a panel of Arkansas legislators said at a Friday conference on distance education in Rogers.
State Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, DCrossett, a member of the Senate Education Committee, said rural school leaders should view distance education as a complement, not a replacement, to their traditional classroom offerings.
“Nothing can ever take the place of that warm, caring, loving teacher who has a presence in the classroom and can put her arm around those elementary kids and snuggle up to them,” Jeffress said during a panel discussion that included state Sen. Kim Hendren, R-Gravette, state Sen. Steve Bryles, D-Blytheville, and state Rep. Mark Martin, RPrairie Grove.
The conference, titled “Can Distance Education Save Rural Schools,” was hosted by the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville department of education reform. It was held at the John Q. Hammons Convention Center in Rogers.
Legislators, educators and researchers from across the state spent the day listening to talks on the potential of distance education, the legal and technical barriers it faces and its future in the state.
Cathi Swan, Arkansas distance learning coordinator, said more than 8, 000 students in 222 school districts take distanceeducation courses through one of the state’s nine provider centers. That’s up from about 60 students in 2000.
Classes often involve students participating in a lesson taught remotely via Web-based, live video.
More than 90 percent of the students are in high school, Swan said. That’s largely because rural high schools struggle to find qualified staff to teach the set of 38 core courses required by the state.
The 450-student Omaha School District in Boone County uses distance learning to offer Spanish I and Spanish II.
Superintendent David Land said he turned to Internet-based learning this year when his Spanish teacher unexpectedly quit and he couldn’t find a replacement.
“It’s not as personalized as when you have a real teacher,” Land said. “But in an emergency situation, it’s excellent.”
Cindy Green, an English teacher at one of the state’s provider centers, said the staff must meet the same certification requirements as traditional classroom teachers. Anything from Advanced Placement calculus to elementary art can be taught via the Web.
“I take all the skills I learned in college, and I just convert it,” she said. “It’s not as different as everyone perceives it to be. Instead of considering it a barrier, I just look at it as a new path.”
Peter Stewart, whose company K 12 Inc. markets distance-learning curricula, said Web-based learning can do more than help rural schools meet state standards.
It also can also bolster professional development for teachers, decrease dropout rates by exposing students to more engaging curricula, help homebound students continue their education and improve test scores.
William Mathis, professor in continuing education at the University of Vermont, said software vendors claim positive results for distance education, but that there’s been no gold-standard study proving that distance education helps or hinders student performance.
It’s also costly to bring highspeed Internet service to rural schools, Mathis said.
“I think the jury is still out,” he said.
State Sen. David Bisbee, RRogers said legislators generally back classroom-based distance learning, but that some worry about implementing distance learning outside the classroom on a large scale.
About 500 students study at home through the Web-based Arkansas Virtual Academy charter school. “Virtual schools are perceived as for upper middle class, stay at home, white soccer moms willing to do home-schooling,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to help single moms or working-parent families, because they can’t stay home to help their kids.” Karen Ghidotti, director of the virtual academy, said it’s incorrect to say that her school only serves rich, white children. Nearly 50 percent of students come from low-income families. “We do have single moms, minority students and Englishlanguage learners,” she said. “We have the demographics of the state of Arkansas in our school.”
To contact this reporter: jkrupa@arkansasonline. com
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