Internet-Based Classes Making a Difference

By Rebecca Vandermeulen, Reading Eagle, Pa.

Feb. 25–Lori L. Koller was supposed to graduate from Tulpehocken Junior-Senior High School in the spring of 2004.

But she couldn’t stand to sit in class and have teachers hassle her to do her homework. She dropped out twice and last year missed about 50 days of school.

"I just didn’t want to be here at all," said Koller, 20. "I just wanted to take off, go somewhere else, live somewhere else."

But the Frystown resident returned to the Tulpehocken School District last winter and expects to graduate in June.

What prompted the turnaround?

Koller credited a new district program called the Tulpehocken Blended Academy, which allows her to take six classes over the Internet.

Koller takes her classes using software called Blackboard from the Blendedschools.net Web site. Once she signs in, she can view her reading homework, assigned online activities and tests.

Her civics class, for example, includes a link to view the U.S. Constitution and explains what it means.

"You can go at your own pace," Koller said. "It’s a lot easier than listening to a teacher talk."

Tulpehocken is the first Berks County district to use the Blendedschools.net program, but Assistant Principal Michael B. Leister said other county districts are considering it.

"There’s definitely a lot of interest," he said.

Other plans include using the Blended Academy for summer school programs and for students who are away from school because of prolonged illness, Leister said.

Koller does all of her work online, then prints it for Emogene L. Weller, who teaches in the school’s alternative-education room. The teacher then grades Koller’s work.

All of Weller’s 10 students take at least some of their classes online. They also use books.

For many, the online program has forced them to be more responsible for finishing their work and has helped them improve their grades, Weller said.

"Some students don’t do well in the typical big classroom," she said.

The district gets the curriculum for each class from Blendedschools.net, a program that began in the Tuscarora Intermediate Unit, which serves four counties in south-central Pennsylvania.

Blendedschools.net offers more than 100 high school classes. Weller said she can control the curriculum without spending hours developing a lesson plan for each student.

"I can take out a chapter that I don’t want. You can change the assignments around, make your own activities and tests," she said.

At night, Weller also helps three students who take all of their classes online at home. Those credits count toward a Tulpehocken diploma.

Anne S. Brubaker, the district’s coordinator of special programs, said those three have been doing well.

"They weren’t successful in a regular environment," she said. "To see them learning virtually in cyber land is very exciting."

The program, which costs $10,000 this year, also is saving the district money, Brubaker said.

Two of the students now learning at home otherwise would have attended cyber charter schools, which work similarly but don’t offer Tulpehocken diplomas. The district also would have had to pay $16,000 for each of those students to attend cyber charter schools, she said.

Four other teachers use the Blended Academy to supplement their classroom teaching, Brubaker said.

She said Dr. Augie J. Grant, who retired as superintendent last spring, got the program rolling. He pushed other technological programs, such as "virtual field trips" that mean students don’t have to leave the classroom.

For Koller, the student whose once-troubled academic career is back on track, the online program has had an additional payoff, Leister said.

She’s no longer a frequent visitor to his office.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Reading Eagle, Pa.

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