Blog #11 Reading Response

Proper MLA Citation:
This source is classified as an Article. The proper citation is:
Pape, Liz. “High School on the Web.” American School Board Journal (2005): 12-16.

Summary:
This article discussed how online education in high schools is becoming more prevalent because students in small schools can take classes that would otherwise have never been offered in their school. Most people who were born between 1982 and 2000 spend the most time on the computer than any other age group, and this would be a good way for them to learn since they are so used to it. It gives a policy that schools could use to try and get online education allowed at their schools and seven criteria for online education. These criteria include curriculum, instructional design, teacher quality, student roles, assessment, management and support systems, and technological infrastructure. It also talks about two virtual high schools where the online education boosted the students’ ability to actually want to learn, and the students were able to take more challenging elective classes on subjects that caught their interest.

Importance:
This work is important because it evaluates what makes online educational classes in high school better than the education taught in a normal classroom setting. Some significant ideas that I gathered from this work are that test scores have gone up in the Advanced Placement courses and the rates for passing those exams are five percent higher than other high schools. The student can also learn in a variety of different ways because there is so much new technology and the teacher has the freedom to teach in new ways as well.

Connections:
This article is similar to work I have experienced in my academic career because last semester I had to do math homework online. All of the problems were online and if you needed help, there was an example on the side of each problem to show you how to solve it. I also am going to take an English class next semester online, so it is giving me an idea of what I have to look forward to in order to be able to succeed in that class. The article gave guidelines on how students who were successful completed their courses, so that is very helpful to support not only this evaluation essay, but in my real life as well.

Supporting Source:
This article could be used as support for my argument because it is a great example of what an evaluation should be. It tells you everything that is on the positive side of online education in high schools and all the advantages that follow. It also lists seven criteria, which were exactly what was said in class an evaluation should be based upon. It expands on each of those criteria, which would be great proof for my evaluation essay. It also lists some virtual high schools and how they have surpassed many expectations people have had about online education since it is so recent.

Argumentative Source:
If I had to take this author and their argument to task, I would critique the fact that they did not say any bad points in their evaluation of online education in high schools. They also said that other test scores have improved and are higher in some virtual classrooms than normal classrooms, but did not list any of the statistics. They did not prove that their point was correct, which would not be good proof for my argument in my paper. They also only talked about two virtual high schools and how they have succeeded, but failed to mention other ones that maybe did not do so well.