From: technews <technews@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@listserv.ou.edu'" <it-fyi@lists.ou.edu>
Subject: it-fyi: U of Nebraska Supplies On-Line HS Courses in Kentucky (Ch
Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 12:09:27 -0500
U. of Nebraska Will Supply On-Line High-School Courses in Kentucky
By SARAH CARR
A for-profit company created by the University of Nebraska at Lincoln has
scored a major sale: It will provide on-line high-school courses to a new
virtual high school in Kentucky.
On Thursday, Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton announced that the state would
purchase courses from the company, called Class.com (http://www.class.com),
to help launch the Kentucky Virtual High School. The high school will offer
on-line courses to students throughout the state beginning in January.
Mary Beth Susman, the chief executive officer of the Kentucky Commonwealth
Virtual University (http://www.kcvu.org/), said Kentucky ould pay $195 to
Class.com for each student enrolled in one of its courses. The virtual
university has worked with other state agencies to develop the high school.
Richard Edwards, the senior vice-chancellor at Nebraska, said the university
founded Class.com with the goal of helping school districts like those in
Kentucky make education more accessible and equitable.
"We have been working hard for three years to make courses that work in
exactly the kind of circumstances that Kentucky has identified," he said.
"We believe that the courses we can offer will provide a wonderful base for
just this kind of widespread dissemination."
The Kentucky Virtual High School will license 10 to 12 courses from
Class.com. Although the content of the courses is developed by Nebraska,
students will sign up at their local high schools in Kentucky and take the
Web-based classes with certified Kentucky teachers. All of the classes are
offered almost wholly on line, with some CD-ROM and video supplements.
Ms. Susman said state officials would like Kentucky high-school teachers to
be able to create some of their own on-line courses. To meet this goal, the
state has contracted with eCollege.com (http://www.ecollege.com/), which
provides services and consulting to faculty members and institutions hoping
to put courses on line, for training and software. Leaders of the high
school also plan to work closely with the existing Kentucky Commonwealth
Virtual University.
Ms. Susman said the deal between Kentucky and Class.com demonstrates that
the lines dividing high school from college education are blurring as a
result of on-line education.
She said that the Kentucky Virtual High School would enroll 900 students in
its first semester, and that the goal was for it eventually to have 4,000 to
5,000. Initially, the virtual school will focus on advanced math, science,
and language classes, offering courses such as Advanced Placement calculus.
Ms. Susman said the aim was to provide all students in the state with access
to the same classes, regardless of the wealth of the student's school
district.
"This is a major step forward in terms of creating an equality of
opportunity for all students in Kentucky, particularly those in rural
areas," she said.
Class.com was launched last spring by the University of Nebraska at Lincoln,
which has operated an accredited, correspondence-based high school since
1929. Leaders at the company hope to continue to contract with individual
high-school districts or consortia of districts to offer their courses.
It is not surprising that Kentucky looked to an outside source for some of
its initial courses, said Phyllis Lentz, a resource and research specialist
at Florida High School (http://fhs.net/FHSWeb.nsf/Home?Open), a virtual high
school in Florida. "The development of curriculum is a very time-intensive
process," she said. Because of national curriculum standards, "a course
doesn't always have to be reinvented -- it can be transferred to another
state or environment," she said.
Florida High School has been in existence for two years and currently works
with about 2,000 students in 57 counties.
Ms. Lentz said she anticipated that other states would soon establish
programs comparable to the Florida and Kentucky virtual high schools. "From
the number of phone calls we get, it sure seems like everybody is," she
said.
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Copyright 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education