Other schools choose the students courses distance learning work online. For many educators, the goal is to prepare for life after high school offer students many colleges and universities virtual learning. Photo of Geri Lavrov / Getty
An increasing share of the US workforce works from home, and some school districts technology experts take note.
Park Ridge High School in New Jersey, for example, celebrated so that most of its 561 students to join in the school from the comfort of your room or the kitchen table recently launched its first "virtual day".
"The main reason we do this is to prepare to the high school students on life," said the director Troy Lederman. "Almost every university a kind of online courses or virtual, and many companies are now employees say working remotely, so they to from the student."
The strategy is currently being used by a handful of schools in Alabama, Minnesota and New Jersey, provides a new twist on the established trends in digital learning.
For more than a decade, the districts online courses have offered their own computing devices, as the students, and embraced the "mixed" face to face classes are mixed with computer-assisted instruction. In recent years, as by the law of Illinois, Indiana, founded in Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania for schools approved the benefits of these technologies days of e-learning to take in response health crisis, snowstorms and other emergencies.
The new "work at home" days, events, however, are autonomy through planned with goals of promoting students to make time for professional development of employees in order to save money and energy costs busing throughout the school.
Days of virtual hosting is for some of the main reasons why not. Some government policies and local employment contracts, it is difficult to find such flexibility in the school calendar and allow students to work from home in order to place a heavy burden on the parents. Even without Internet access at home are have disadvantaged students.
Given the incredibly poor academic records of many online schools run full time, some parents and educators are skeptical that the days of e-learning will be successful. But developers of digital learning are enthusiastic about the concept.
With nearly 4 million US employees now accounted for half of the time, it makes sense to experiment for schools with flexible days, experts who study the workplace constantly develop say.
"We are moving more and more all the time," Kate Lister said President Global Workplace Analytics, a research and consulting services. "The genius is not in the bottle."
A difficult start
Despite some exaggeration, the last day of the virtual Parkridge had a difficult start.
Although most students from the school were, it was expected to achieve a management system online learning through the district network, which yielded to the sudden pressure of hundreds of users tried to connect at the same time.
And even weeks of planning and training, showing some teachers primarily online digital music for students to complete.
Some employees, including physics professor Golda Steiner also expressed bewilderment at the premises of the day.
"You do not really think it's a good idea," said veteran educator of 24 years.
"It's much more fun when the students are here, and I can ask questions based on what they find," Steiner said, sitting alone with a laptop in her empty classroom.
At noon, however, appear to teachers and students have settled from Park Ridge, especially in its new temporary routine. Professor Robert Andresen organized second a live text chat between students in Class 9 world-class cultures, to go from time to time through the room online, to keep the discussion dominate.
"One of the main advantages is that it to judge them more time, which allows they have to do," Andresen said. "You should not have an immediate answer to me, and some of the fears [public speaking] lost when the online discussion is moving."
Meanwhile, half a mile away, second Claire Perez and a small group of friends, still dressed in sweatpants and slippers, sitting at the kitchen table Perez, open laptops. Three daughters with her class in American literature.
Virtual Lesson of the day: the use of Twitter in search of a subject, to communicate with colleagues and experts, and the practice of concise writing.
Alli second Uhl he said the variety enjoyed.
"Talking about [problem] in the class is able to fine, but in Twitter, see what others think, and I can their answers," Uhl said. "I am a visual learner, so I much better if it before me."
Some parents push
Other districts have adopted different approaches in their own work from home days.
Instead a schedule traditional classes of the following, for example, neighboring schools Pascack Valley, New Jersey, offered recently a half-day virtual classes and allowed the afternoon to use in their missions independently students, the house to work.
The less structured approach was a response to feedback from students after a day of e-learning Snow district two years ago, said Superintendent P. Erik Gundersen.
"The students said they had never worked harder in one day," said Gundersen. "We need our balance between the expectations."
Minnesota, meanwhile, the 7000 student quarter Farmington scheduled four days, "flex-learning" in this school year.
The good news, said Superintendent Jay Haugen, is that teachers have adopted the majority of the new strategy to encourage students to use the time to explore, "Engineering hour" time in which they their own explore interests and preparation for presentations. The cash-strapped district was to save also able a total of $ 75,000 for not to open the school building or bus run these days, Haugen said.
However, virtual day of Farmington that are mandatory for all students in K-12 classrooms, causing a certain resistance of working parents and parents of younger children.
"I really think that the time was lost sociability and extra cost for individual families for a day, as this is not an effective way is to educate our young children," one parent wrote about an investigation of the district.
Another common lessons that say district leaders that they include the training of staff learned lesson planning and communication with parents.
Researchers to study the work of the United States, meanwhile, say they have collected ideas that may be relevant for the schools.
For example, the work to grow at home trend seems likely: About 80 percent of adults work would say they work remotely, at least part of the time, and employers take this desire for a very pragmatic reason, he said, Professor of Economics at Stanford University Nicholas Bloom.
"The classic fear is that going to be lazy and watch cartoons all day," Bloom, who said out a study of 2,014 revolutionary workers in call centers to a Chinese travel agency. "We were surprised that they were much more productive, almost one day a week."
But while the overall productivity tends to increase, Bloom said, there are differences between the individual worker. Most employees call center have chosen to return to the office at the end of the study to provide dozens Ridge students given citing distractions, loneliness and the desire of the interactions between facial same reasons of different park that chose to participate to school instead of to home to work from.
Bloom also noted that working from home seems to work better for the two types of employees: professionals who are highly motivated intern from the concerns of long-term career and lower-level employees whose work can be closely monitored.
in the context of this dynamic risk, he said global working Analytics Lister, is that schools, students use tracking because they can instead proceed a way to help students and staff to learn and what it needs to bloom, really in the online work environment.
"The company really get this right includes a comprehensive strategy and a culture of trust people," he said.
This article was produced by Education Week, a new independent non - profit - organization with new and comprehensive analysis of the Pre-K-12.
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