Technology meets teaching at Cyber School

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If you have access to a computer with an Internet connection, and you are motivated to learn, you have what it takes to become a student at Cyber School, an Internet-based school run by the Saskatoon Catholic Schools.

The Cyber School is a relatively new addition to the world of education. The first class at the virtual school was offered in August 2000. Now, a total of 16 different courses are offered, including one at the Grade 9 level, four at the Grade 10 level, five in Grade 11, and six in Grade 12. And another four courses are currently in development.

"It's all done via the Internet," explained Darren Cannell, project leader and assistant principal of Cyber School. "So we're using the Internet as our vehicle of delivery. All the courses have been developed so all the content is in the course before we start to teach it. When students log on, they register with us electronically, then we give them a user name and password, and they log onto what's called their homeroom. They get into the homeroom area, and then within that area, we have a couple of reminders for them, we have daily announcements. We have a chapel that comes with every single course that allows them to access the Catholicity, that we being a Catholic school, we allow them to have access to that information. And then they also have a link directly to whichever classes they're registered in.

"Once they've logged in, then they go directly to their home page for their course, and the home page normally ends up with a couple of different links. The first one is the content, obviously, for their course. The other one that they would run into right away is the calendar, which just keeps them up to date as to what they should be doing on each day, to make it a little bit easier for them. And then we also have what we call communication tools. And that's a chat room, a bulletin board, an e-mail system and a whiteboard system, which are all methods of the student being able to get in touch with their peers as well as their instructor.

"Then the student tools, we have, we track the students behavior from the moment they put in their password to the moment they log off. So we know exactly which pages they've read, how long they spent on each page, when they're writing their tests, how long they actually spent on every single one of the questions they've written their test on. Also in that student's page area, we have ability for them to print off course material, so that they don't have to read everything on line. We also have a search for the whole course. We have a student grade book, which allows them to see how they did on all their tests and all their assignments. So when a teacher marks their assignment, it goes into the student's grade book so they can see it automatically without them having to contact the teacher to say, 'How did I do on such and such an assignment'," he explained.

"When we started, our target audience was the advanced student, who is doing really well in school, who is the self-motivator, and would have no problems with the freedom that we offer within this school. But we have found since then is that it's appealing to a lot of different groups," Cannell said. "The student who is having a lot of problems in a face to face classroom, for whatever the reason is-if its behavioral issues, if its the fact that the classroom is too difficult for them, so the classroom is moving too quick for them-we found they develop very well within the Cyber School, because you can work at your own pace. So if you don't understand the concept, you can go back and do it over and over again until you actually understand it. Where in a classroom, you don't have that luxury." The Cyber School has also attracted students who are on Canada's national sports teams, players in the Western Hockey League, and students who are physically unable to go into a school, whether because of physical or mental problems. University students who are switchingmajors and need to pick up pre-requisite courses they didn't take in high school are also logging on to the Cyber School, as are students who left high school and are only one or two credits away from their diploma. Mothers who left school to have their children are also using Cyber School to get their diplomas, and the school's new English as a Second Language program is drawing a lot of international students who just want to improve their language skills.

The school is also ideal for students in small schools who don't have access to the courses they want to take because demand for the course is too low to justify offering it, Cannell explained.

"We've done a few different partnerships with different schools . . . we've done ones where we supply the content expert, they supply the lab technician at that end, then all of the students go into the lab. We've done the ones where the student is just working from home and needs to pick up the one class from a rural school division. And those ones are becoming more and more popular, because a lot more students don't want to leave their home, wherever they're living, to move to a bigger centre so they can receive the classes they need in order to go into the university classes they would like to take."

Another group of students that is growing in numbers is First Nations students, Cannell said.

"One of the projects that we started to try to get started this year was with Joe Duquette high school here in the city, which is all First Nations students. And what we were going to try to do there is run a partnership where they work out of their lab, and they supply lab time during their day, and then allow the students to take whatever they wish. So they're going to supply a teacher at that end, and then they just open up the lab, and then a student can register for journalism, for English, for math or whatever, and all of them would be taking it at exactly the same time during the day.

"The thing that's holding back ost of the registrations that we're having from First Nations has to do with the machines and connectivity at home. If they don't have high-speed connections, and they don't have a machine at home, they have to have access to a machine somewhere. Because unlike a correspondence course, you can't download everything from here and just work on it from a paper base. It's got to be a connected course. We've run into some problems with that," he said.

"Someone asked me what's the number one characteristic of a successful on-line student, and my answer to that is always exactly the same-need. How badly do they need that class? That's always been whether or not they're successful. If they're just shopping to see something different, and would like to try something different, they're not going to be that successful. But if that student needs a physics class in order to graduate, absolutely needs it, that student will do whatever it takes in order to be successful. So need is the number one motivating factor for a student being successful." Although Cyber School offers students a chance to study at their own pace, without ever leaving their home, or their home community, that isn't the only thing that makes the program different than traditional schools. Cyber School is also different in its approach to education. The program provides students with more than facts, figures and formulas; it also provides them with the tools they will need once they leave school.

"We sort of approach the Cyber School from the point of view where the content is secondary to the method of finding the content. Because the information society is out there now. And there's so much information out there, so to try to teach the students every single little piece of information is not the goal of what school should be. The goals of what school should be now is how do you find the information?

"So if you need to find it, something about the War of 1812, where would you go looking for that? Where wuld you go to find that information? And how would you decide whether or not it's good information or not good information? So teaching and educating a student to become an informed, information screener. Someone who could actually analyze the information that they're going to be bombarded with in their workforce and in their private life, and be able to analyze what would be good and what not be good is a very good objective of what school systems should be doing at this point in time. Rather than, 'In 1812, who won the war?' If someone asked me that, I could find out in less than three minutes with the tools that I have now. Now that's a better skill than me being able to, off the top of my head, say, 'Oh, so and so won the war of 1812'," he said.

For more information about Cyber School, call 668-2981, visit the Cyber School Web site at www.scs.sk.ca/cyber/home.htm, or e-mail the school at cyber@scs.sk.ca.