To begin with I need to identify the two schools that I researched. The State school is North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS) and the charter/for-profit school is AccelerateU run through BOCES. In general, I think my view of NCVPS has remained fairly consistent since the beginning. I was immediately impressed with the comprehensive nature of their website and the clarity by which they present their objectives, offerings and additional resources. They are focused on both academic enhancements and credit recovery, utilize a wide variety of technological tools and provide ways for learners to interact with other learners, as well as the teachers and content. I also believe that my classifications in the "Online Programs" spreadsheet were on target. I am still disappointed that they do not provide a mechanism to search courses or to view a demo course, however I would be inclined to recommend this school for North Carolina residents. Here is my NCVPS research on WetPaint.
My view of AccelerateU has change a little bit since beginning my initial research. For one thing, I lowered the position of learner-learner interaction on the spreadsheet because it was not clear that much of this activity is actually taken place. There may be some use of discussion boards, and there may be cases where students are accessing the AccelerateU content from the same location (a local traditional school) but this does not seem to be prevalent. Also, most courses are designed to be self-paced (within a range) making for more difficult student interaction. I was also unhappy to discover that although the AccelerateU program seems to be the most comprehensive online offering for New York State students, it is not available to all students in all regions. The local BOCES chapters must be a member of AccelerateU for students in those regions to participate. Here is my AccelerateU research on Wetpaint.
A brief comparison of both schools based on the spreadsheet data indicates the following main differences:
- Students participate from anywhere in both schools, but AccelerateU students may also participate from a local brick-and-mortar school.
- Learner-teacher interaction is stronger at NCVPS than at AccelerateU, although the latter has on-site facilitators. This also means students at AccelerateU have more facetime than students at NCVPS which does occasional phone conversations.
- Learner-learner interaction is much stronger at NCVPS.
- On the learner autonomy measure, classes at NCVPS are course-paced while classes at AccelerateU are self-paced.
- NCVPS is more of a virtual classroom than AccelerateU which provides more virtual courses.
I couldn't find any press releases about AccelerateU. A search in Google just found a newsletter produced by the school called Choices. The newsletter is located on the same domain as the school but interestingly I never discovered it when research all the other aspects we examined. This is a downfall of the site because it would have been interesting to read through some of the articles. The site does not provide any press releases either although they do display a logo for "2004 Center for Digital Education Winner" but clicking on the icon brings you a to a "Page Not Found" message on the Center for Digital Education website.
A search for press releases about NCVPS brought me to a video discussing NCVPS's use of Web 2.0 tools which I was pleased to see. The other thing I found was ScreenToaster's list of NCVPS lessons, like this one from a Digital Photography class. These aren't as good as a demo course, but better than nothing. The Virtual Learning Consultant Blog provides information about what activities NCVPS is working on, like an upcoming presentation on SecondLife and their presence on Twitter. This blog is also linked off the school's website under "Director's Chair."
Several other articles appeared in the search including: "Discovery Education and the North Carolina Virtual Public School Partner to Provide Services Bringing the Highest Quality Digital Content to Online Students", "Online Learning Report Shows N.C. Virtual Public School Fifth in the Nation in Enrollment", and "North Carolina's Virtual Public School Celebrates First Year". There is also a list of all documents available from NCVPS at Digital Repository of the State of North Carolina. The school also has a presence on Facebook. Finally, the school itself provides a repository of news and announcements on it's site, including podcasts, EdWeek articles and other sources of information.
NCVPS clearly has a much larger presence and is more well established than AccelerateU and is a model that other schools should look towards.
Wrapping Up
Overall I think that my research has proven to be indicitive of the many varied options that exist for virtual schooling and I am excited to see what happens as schools evolve and new schools appear. In the meantime, I wanted to share some links that arose this week for future reference.
- Online Learning Institute
- Journal of Interactive Online Learning
- Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning (book)
- Millenials Quiz
Would you have been able to find a link to the NCVPS video that you liked on their site?
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