An educational alternative
Finding a school for your child when moving to another country can be an overwhelming experience. There are many factors you need to consider such as the schools reputation, the type of curricula, class sizes, and costs. Currently, parents have a choice between international and local state schools, both of which have their pros and cons. But, could there now be another alternative in the form of online education?
What is online education?
Most people would regard online education as a form of distance learning. This being, the course and its content are provided online, the student works through topics each week and sits an exam at the end of the course. Obviously, this is nothing like attending a traditional school and would never be considered an alternative. So, you might be wondering at this point, what could possibly make online education an alternative to a physical school? The answer is simple, a school but online.
Even with the advances in technology, education has not changed a significant amount over the last 50 years. Depending on the country you are from, the key features remain the same:
- Students wear the set uniform of the school
- Students study a fixed number of subjects, including ones they might not be interested in
- Students start and finish school the same time every day
What if a school was flexible enough to let parents have the final say on what subjects their child takes? What if students only the spent the required teaching time in school, freeing up space to pursue interests and build hobbies? And what if a school’s pedagogy began with ‘who is the student’ rather than ‘what shall we teach’. This increasing demand for a modern structure of education has led to the creation of a number of ‘online schools’ that are considered by some to be the future of education.
How does an online school work?
Using digital technology, virtual classrooms form the basis for teaching on the web. These classrooms are just like physical ones, a teacher is present via a webcam, a whiteboard area is used to deliver the lesson and students can input and interact through a microphone device and keyboard. One of the main advantages of learning in this format is the increased control the teacher has over the lesson. They can fully focus on teaching for all the lesson time without having to divert their attention away to deal with behaviour issues or other interruptions you may expect to encounter in a more traditional classroom setting. Disruptions are kept to a minimum as misbehaving students can be removed in a mouse click and chat features can be disabled to avoid subjects outside of school being the topic of conversation.