Kingman High School is piloting a new technological way of learning for students, online courses. Currently, it is mostly preferred that upper classmen take these courses, but if students have their required classes squared away, an online offering is now an option.

The online course education system that KHS uses is Virtual Greenbush, a department in the Southeast Kansas Education System; it provides a variety of classes that aren’t typically offered by schools. Examples of classes include Oceanography, Foreign Languages, and Developmental Psychology. Greenbush provides a number of classes that could interest just about everybody. They also offer concurrent credit for college and high school which can help students who want to shorten their college time.

Internet classes give students a lot of freedom and are easier to access in difficult situations. If students taking these classes miss school, they have the capability to make up work at a convenient time and location.

When asked how she felt about online classes for high school students, Mrs. Baldwin replied that as long as the student stuck with it and did their work instead of putting it off it could help them.

Certainly, online courses are most successfully used by responsible students that don’t need to be prodded to do their work since students do assignments and work at their own pace. Since some people learn faster than others and vice versa, taking an online course could lessen the stress on students struggling to keep up with a fast paced class or eliminate frustration for those who could complete work more quickly if allowed.

Since it is a small school district, USD 331 is limited in the area of advanced placement or AP classes. Though online courses are just taking off, it is easy to see how they could expand the opportunity to challenge students in the future. In fact, they might someday offer an alternative for students who are advanced for a regular class offering. Occasionally, teachers feel like exceptional students should be placed ahead in a class that would challenge them more. In the past, the problem with that was a question of what classes would be available to such students later if they ran through the other classes early. Online courses could be the answer if such acceleration became more common.

With so much possibility, what classes might KHS students be taking in the years ahead?