Now as I said yesterday, I'm not ready to throw the towl in on our neighborhood high school (yet). If you are careful as to which teachers you request you can have a good experience--but there are times, such as this semester, when getting a dud is unavoidable. Grace loves the humanities but instead of learning about arts and letters she's cutting numbers and walking like a sloth. According to my sister, Carinne, Williamsburg is great for those who are homeschooling and want the benefits of a classroom setting but what I'm thinking is that it would also be a great tool for supplementing in situations such as Grace is facing.
At this point Grace is close enough to her entrance exams and final semester that it wouldn't make a lot of sense for us but for Spencer or David I may very well use it. It's not cheap--live classes where you can interact with other students and with the teacher are $200 and recorded classes $100 but they study real things and don't get mired in touchy-feely, off-beat activities. If you have a child that is self-motivated and you've got the computer/internet capabilities then it might be a good option.
Anyway, Carinne says her friends who have used the site have all had good things to say about it so right there it's got a better track record than many of our local schools and bears looking into.
6 comments:
Williamsburg is a great way to go if you are needing something different than traditional public school. My brother-in-law is Dan Ralphs and used to work for them in the classroom on campass. He recently moved to Arizona and has now started a public high school very similar to Williamsburg called Lexington Academy (lexingtonacademy.org). So if you are in AZ and want a classroom experience go and check him out!
I know that I plan on sending my kids there when they are in highschool!
I've looked at K12 before. They have great concepts as well. I'm not sure how they compare price-wise, though. Check it out!
Bookmarking this for later consideration. Since our lifestyle id very mobile there may be a time where I need to utilize something like this. To bad our internet connection here is to flaky to make something like this or even k-12 a viable option for homeschooling.
Can't remember what grade your daughter is in but starting when she's a Junior she can take Post Secondary Education Option. Both my girls did it. They take college courses online and they go towards high school and college credits. Both of my daughter's have done it. My oldest, 19, went into her first year of real college with enough credits to be considered 1/2 way thru her sophomore year. This year she's a sophomore and has enough credits to be considered a senior! LOL
Books: Free, Courses: Free
My girls had to take the ACT and get a score of 18 to be able to take the college courses for PSEO.
My other daughter only started her senior year, so I'm not sure what she'll go into college as.
I think most colleges have PSEO classes. Totally worth looking into. Saved a LOT of $$ and they took credits that go towards their college records!
~Mimi
Schools like this are getting more popular. I'm getting curious because I'm considering leaving my classroom teaching job. I'm taking a graduate course in online teacher, just to test the waters. Maybe this will be my next angle.
Interesting. I wonder if this is the way of the future...a "brave new world" for education? What do you think? I see both pros + cons to learning online...too many to write about now (it's after midnight).
I hope you continue to write on this topic in the coming months (I'd love to hear what you think if you decide to go this route with your boys).
stephanie@metropolitanmama.net
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