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Maryland plans statewide online school
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In the brick-and-mortar world of schools exists a separate little universe, a mice-and-keyboards place where the computer is the classroom. Educators in Maryland, and across the United States are hoping to merge the two. Next year, Maryland educators hope to put a statewide high school online, expanding a program already used in 10 of the state's 24 counties. About 350 students would be able to sign up for cyber-classes in the sciences, math, literature and even macroeconomics -- topics that might lack sufficient appeal in a traditional school to justify the space and expense such courses would require.
Maryland’s experiment would benefit students and teachers, says Liz Glowa, who coordinates the online school project for the Montgomery County, Maryland’s public schools. "The Web-based learning project is proposing to open a virtual school that will support students who need high school credit and also professional development for teachers," she says.
Online schools offer students and districts at least two benefits, supporters say. Homeschooled students and those with disabilities can easily use the systems; they're also cheaper than building more classrooms. Maryland next year would spend between $125 to $495 per student per semester for online education compared to an average of $7,125 spent per student each year in a traditional classroom, according to state education figures. Maryland is not the only state pursuing cyber-education. Twenty-six states offer some form of computerized learning now -- most of it designed for use in the classroom, during school hours. Of America's 16 million high school students, 30,000 have taken an online course, The Associated Press reports.
By next year, the number of cyber-students at the college level is expected to top 2 million, the American Federation of Teachers estimates. That number is expected to soar if Congress passes legislation that would extend Pell Grants and student loans to college students who take courses online. Cyber-education’s attractions are as obvious to students as they are to administrators, says Glowa. "Students would go to school as they regularly do and be able to take an on-line course either at school or be released a period early to take a course," she says. Cyber-schools won't replace the classroom, say some educators, but will complement it. But skeptics worry that lower costs will tempt cash-strapped school systems that may see online schools as the solution to chronic shortages of teachers and classrooms. Others fear that the human element would be lost in cyberspace. "It's a human business, teaching is," says Alan Warhaftig a coordinator with Living In The Real World, a Los Angeles, California, group studying the effect of computers on education. The key to successful teaching is understanding when students grasp what they're being taught, he says. "I can see it in their body language, I can see it in their eyes" says Warhaftig, who has classroom experience. Warhaftig also says Internet learning cannot provide the social setting classes provide. Students learning alone, he says, miss some of life’s most important lessons. "They learn how to listen, they learn how to discuss," he says. "They learn the skills that they're going to need when they go to college. The problem with online education is that you don't really get that." RELATED STORIES:
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Maryland State Department of Education |
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