Giving Evansville students the opportunity to supplement their classroom curriculum with online course work is integral to the Evansville school corporation’s strategic plan, said EVSC Chief Academic Officer David Dimmett.

For the rest of the article, go to IU High School agreement contributes to Virtual Academy in Evansville, Ind.

A similar innovation at the college level is Indiana’s new partnership with Western Governors University. Few Hoosiers had heard of WGU before radio ads began promoting the program this summer. Gov. Frank O’Bannon helped found the online college back in 1997. In June, Gov. Mitch Daniels signed an executive order establishing a more formal relationship with the school through which Hoosiers can earn degrees in business, teacher education, information technology and health professions.

Much like the K-12 online programs, WGU assigns faculty mentors to students to supervise their work. Students get credit not based on hours in the classroom but by writing papers, completing assignments and passing exams that demonstrate content knowledge. Tuition averages $6,000 a year.

For the rest of the article, go to Online learning on the menu

On Aug. 23, the inaugural class will enroll in Indiana Connections Academy, an on-line charter school being offered on a pilot basis by the Indiana Department of Education for students in grades 1-8.

Pupils work at home under guidance from family mentors and on-line certified teachers, who can deliver interactive lessons to groups of students or individuals as needed. The students take part in extra-curricular activities, such as Internet chess clubs, and go on field trips with peers from the online community. It’s home schooling but with a standardized curriculum aligned to state proficiency requirements. As with other public schools, taxpayers foot the bill.

For the rest of the article, go to NEAL: Let’s embrace online learning

Available courses will range from remedial help to Advanced Placement, and they come from all core subject areas, said Jason Bailey, the school district’s director of e-learning and instructional technology.

Regular classroom teachers also will be able to supplement their courses with material from the Virtual Academy, Bailey said.

“We also want to encourage students to think how this curriculum could help them get where they want to be,” Bailey said.

The EVSC is partnering with the Indiana University High School and Apex Learning, a provider of digital course curriculum.

The IU High School has students enrolled from 48 states and 35 countries. Apex Learning has served 660,000 students across the nation and world since 1999.

For the rest of the article, go to EVSC: New e-learning academy will help students, teachers

One educator from Floyds Knobs, Indiana told Fortune that $6.Virtual School5 million had been cut from his school district’s general fund. But public schools have an obligation to keep kids on track, leading to an allegedly cheaper kind of education: virtual summer school.

After an 80% summer-school budget cut, 320 Floyds Knobs summer school students will be clicking their way through subjects like algebra, history, and chemistry using an educational software program called Novel Stars.

Floyds Knobs has accepted summer school students from nearby Langsville, Salem, and Greater Clark, all of which have had to cut summer school altogether for budgetary reasons.

For the rest of the article, go to Summer school goes online

Spokeswoman Pat Laystrom says Indiana Connections Academy Virtual Pilot School will serve about 280 students from around the state.

Students receive personalized learning plans but do their work from home. A certified teacher will work with them in live, online classrooms and by phone.

For the rest of the article, go to Second virtual charter enrolling for fall

That said, any Indiana student can be considered for enrollment, she said.

Connections Academy has 18 public schools in 17 states.

The organization also has a nationally accredited private virtual school called National Connections Academy that serves students in states in which the virtual public-school option is not available, Laystrom said.

Indiana Connections Academy is the second virtual charter school in Indiana, said Lauren Auld, spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Education.

Hoosier Academies, a combination virtual and bricks and mortar school that opened in 2008-09, was the first.

For the rest of the article, go to Indiana virtual school to enroll students

“We’re just beginning the second half of summer school today,” Pike County High School Principal Mike Hall said Thursday.

The PCHS program will go through the end of July.

Hall said he likes to see small classrooms in the summer though and this marks the third consecutive year enrollment has dropped.

“Our numbers are down and those are numbers we like to keep down obviously.”

For the students who are attending, Hall said he is pleased about the method of their instruction.

“It’s all computer based,” he said of the curriculum run by the online learning program, ACCESS. “It’s very effective and very challenging as well, it really pushes the students.”

Goshen High School Counselor Buffy Lusk said her summer students are using ACCESS as well.

“I think it’s going real well,” she said.

for the rest of the article, go to Summer school still ongoing for some

This past school year, the EVSC equipped all public high school students with netbook computers, and now it is making direct Internet learning available through its new Virtual Academy, a for-credit online program.

It occurred to us that only a few years ago a dissatisfied public was demanding that the EVSC do more to elevate the academic performance of its students while better preparing them for college and beyond.

To that end, and since the hiring of EVSC Superintendent Vincent Bertram four years ago and the creation of a “strategic agenda” for academic improvement, the public has been getting just what it demanded, through nontraditional programs and an infusion of modern technological tools.

For the rest of the article, go to EDITORIAL: Virtual Academy