Virtual school

Virtual classrooms are made possible through the use educational technology with the help of the internet.[5] The internet itself can be credited on what enabled modern distance learning to be developed.[5] The internet can allow the virtual student to have access to resources such as virtual test taking functions, systems that aide coursework to include electronic reading materials, podcasts to allow the student to have easy access to the lectures and chatrooms.[5] Virtual school is no longer just for high school or college students. Today it has become necessary for all students to be taught virtually due to the current pandemic COVID 19 we have been plagued with. Before younger children were engaged in websites like Hooked on Phonics, ABC Teach, Sesame Street, Leap Pad, and ABC Mouse to name a few which were interactive learning sights which did repeatitive rote memory learning for children through dancing and singing. Now teachers have to use State approve curriculum based websites which work through modules and have accountability for students. Even students as young as two who are enrolled in programs such as HeadStart are required to reach certain benchmarks by a certain age according to the State standards. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States began to encourage social distancing in the education system.[6] One use of technology that was found to be resourceful in the collaboration of students and teachers in virtual learning was the use of video conferencing.[6] The utilization of web videoconferencing allows a student to communicate virtually with their teacher or any other mentor through the use of the apps Zoom and Cisco WebEx.[6] Zoom is a web video conferencing app that is free of download on a mobile device, laptop, or desktop. Through the use of zoom, one on one or group meetings can occur between the students and teachers virtually.[6] This app allows the teacher to share their screen to show exactly what they are teaching and even gives the option to screen record their lectures to make it accessible to the student for future use as a resource.[6] Cisco Webex offers a lot of the same features as Zoom such as multiple users being on at once, video connection, and screen-sharing.[6] To engage virtual students even further, a process known as gamification can be used to teach a student learning material in a form of a game to bring more enjoyment in a student’s learning experience.[7] Secondlife, an online virtual world, is a type of gamification system that is used for online educational purposes.[8] Secondlife can be used as a substitute for face to face learning. It has qualities that resembles an in person curriculum such as class discussions, participation in lectures, and completing assignments.[8] Gamification can also serve as an aide to increase a student's intrinsic motivation.[9] The use of rewarding points while a student is using a gamification system can enhance internal motivation and motivate the student to accomplish learning goals from the game's objective.[10]

Where online methods are integrated with State provision, costs follow state school standards. Otherwise, fees must be met by the student or parents. Many US school districts are now creating their own online services to avoid paying external providers. Such students can graduate from their home district without ever leaving home. In most of these cases, students are given computers, books, and even Internet service to complete coursework from home.

With the resources of the Internet as a library, and the ease of making online study materials, there is usually a comparatively small requirement for textbooks. Most courses will provide electronic materials free of cost, or included in the course fee. Textbooks are most often required for an exam syllabus course.

Advocates of online schools and online learning point to a number of advantages:

• Travel is not required, with much greater dependability of lessons. Whether disrupting transport is almost irrelevant (though an area subject to frequent power cuts will suffer consequent disruptions). Similarly, common health disruptions through minor illness or injury will not halt learning, because the physical demands are so much less. Transcripts of lessons can plug short absences.
• Many students who have personal or health conditions that make physical school difficult or impossible can instead learn using virtual educational programs.
• Ideal for individuals and families who need flexible arrangements. However, synchronous learning does impose limits due to time zones, which tend to divide online schools in Europe and Asia from North America.
• The integration of Internet resources provides a huge library of content, and students quickly become adept at online research.
• There is greater flexibility for self-learners or gifted students to explore learning beyond the standard curriculum. Independent-minded students, those with specialist skills and ambitions, can develop at their own preferred pacing using network resources.
• Online schools can be equalizers, as age, appearance, and background are far less obvious. Groups can be categorized by personal ability.
• Students and pupils benefit from exposure to others in different cultures of the world, which enriches understanding of history, geography, religions and politics, and develops social skills.
• Part-time students with jobs or family commitments may benefit from the flexibility of online schedules, as claimed by supporters of virtual education.[11]
• For asynchronous education, a student may study, learn, or do their homework when they have free time. Therefore, this gives the students flexibility with their education.
• It is argued that online learning is more effective and efficient at providing education to a large number of people no matter the physical distance between the students and professors than traditional education.[12]
• There are claims that online education "develops higher-order skills such as collaborating across time and place and solving complex real-world problems" better than in-class learning.[12]
• Students have the ability to avoid the requirement of travelling to a physical school.
• As pointed out by advocates of online schooling, this type of education could be beneficial in rural areas, where the distance between students and educators is vast.
• A student may have the ability to take a course that is not offered at a location near them.
• Some affirm that virtual education is very cost-effective for schools or districts because it allows a teacher to instruct more students than in a face-to-face classroom setting.[13]
• It has been claimed that courses online are less expensive for the students than courses taken in traditional school, college, or university.[14]
• The children grasped an understanding of the tools rather quickly.[15]
• The chat became one of the most used features.[15]

Some disadvantages of the virtual school include:

• Critics argue that students do not interact with their instructors or peers face-to-face, which lends itself to a "lack of socialization" unless supplemented using online groups, or by attending other social activities outside of school.
• A challenge pointed out by critics is that there is an added challenge of staying focused while in the home environment. It has been reported that many students have a difficult time staying on task when participating in learning online.
• Some argue that the cost of starting up an online school is expensive.
• As pointed out by opposers of online school, not everyone has access to digital technologies which would prohibit them from attending virtual schools, unless their local libraries or community programs may offer access to computers and research materials.
• An argument identified by critics is that virtual schools are relatively new and because of that there are seldom methods of evaluating their effectiveness in educating their students.
• As claimed in a study done by Eric Bettinger and Susanna Loeb, on average, online students "do substantially worse than students in the same face-to-face course".[13] Furthermore, students who attend K-12 online consistently perform worse on state tests than their peers in 'brick and mortar' environments, even when taking into account prior achievement.[16]
• Critics have pointed out that it is common for technology to be unpredictable, glitch, or not function correctly.[14]
• Some people who oppose virtual education have argued that obtaining a job with an online degree may be harder because potential employers may be sceptical of the credibility of these virtual programs.[14]
• The assignments due for online schooling may not be assessing the ability of the students because many answers can be found on the Internet, as claimed by critics of online schooling.[14]
• Not using the tools as much fearing the student's utilization would diminish[15]
• The students would type random things ignoring the lesson. [15]

• Educational technology
• List of virtual schools
• School website
• Virtual campus
• Virtual learning environment
• Virtual school library
• Virtual university
• University of the People