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Real school in a virtual classroom Photo by Jim Craven Phoenix High School student Laura Meredith turns to Cyber School for traditional classes she can't otherwise fit into her schedule. Educators are using the Internet to reach students who excel and students who fail in hopes of improving their chances for success. Cyber classes challenge top students, provide options for others By VICKI GUARINO A fledgling effort to enrich education for students who excel is turning course to reach students who fail. And it's reaching these seemingly disparate groups through the Internet. Educators are turning to the Web in their continuing quest to give high school students alternatives to traditional classes. Cyber classes are joining the list of options that include vocational projects, high school classes with college credit, night school and schools-within-a-school that offer career-oriented instruction in everything from business to theater. For Jackson County high schoolers, online classes began last fall with the opening of the Eugene-based Cyber School. Students log online for educational challenges they can't find in their own schools. Next fall, students who have flunked traditional classes will find their own cyber option, the locally created Southern Oregon Online School. Both programs give students who need it some independence from the strictures of the classroom. Students work on their own, as slowly or as rapidly as they like. No bell rings when these classes go into session. Online students like Will Hobbs and Laura Meredith, seniors at Phoenix High School, have the freedom and the responsibility to sign on and study on their own. Will enrolled in Cyber School's marine ecosystems class last fall because he is interested in marine biology as a profession. Neither Phoenix High nor Southern Oregon University offers marine science classes. Laura signed up for cyber economics so she could fit more classes of the traditional variety into her school schedule. As it happens, Laura's Cyber School economics teacher is Phoenix's business teacher, Virginia Petitt. Laura sees Petitt daily and usually logs on to cyber economics right in Petitt's classroom. Nonetheless, Laura follows class protocol and e-mails her questions. Petitt responds in kind, just as she does with her students across the state. Petitt was among the first 20 or so teachers who spent much of last summer producing Cyber School, the first system of Oregon public high school credit classes online. She says her online students, and students in other Cyber School classes, are academically similar to Will and Laura. They are among the top students in their schools, and they are looking for more challenges than their schools can offer. They're eager to challenge themselves in the new technology of cyber education, developing the skills of online communication, reading and research. They're not thrown by the prospect of a teacher and classmates they never see. "It's a lot of fun to go at your own time, not rush," says Will. "But the disadvantage is you never get to see your teacher or the rest of your class. "There are times you just want to walk up to your teacher and say, `Hey, what am I supposed to do?"' Will has come to rely on his own curiosity about marine life for motivation in the absence of clever lectures and stimulating classroom discussions. "If you're going to do Cyber School, it has to be something you're really interested in to keep you going," he suggests. "When you're interested in the class, you want to learn." Advanced computer skills aren't so important, both students say. Laura has the skill; she's the Phoenix High School Web master. Will, however, doesn't even have a computer at home. "Really, you just need to have the basics," Laura says. "And you have to not mind things sometimes not work on the computer." That goes for cyber teachers, too. Petitt has no text for her online students. They go to the Internet for materials. But sites have the baffling and frustrating tendency to change address without notice. Links go dead, and students can suddenly be left without class work. And Petitt can find herself spending hours tracking down wayward curriculum. "In one week I had four sites change addresses," Petitt remembers. "They were all in the same lesson. "One of them was the New York Stock Exchange. It about drove me crazy." Considering all the challenges and demands, what is ahead for the next chapter in cyber education? Twenty-five teachers from six Jackson and Josephine county school districts, plus the Jackson Education Service District, are trying to work that out. Southern Oregon Online School is a cooperative effort of Phoenix, Crater, Eagle Point, Rogue River, Grants Pass and Three Rivers district high schools. Eventually, organizers want the classes to be available to students at all high schools in Jackson, Josephine and Klamath counties. The project got a boost last month when the Oregon Department of Education awarded a $10,000 grant. Petitt, one of the project teachers, says she wonders whether struggling students will succeed in the solitary world of the online classroom. It will have the benefit of eliminating many of the social aspects of high school that some students find impossible to negotiate, she says. Yet it puts a heavy burden for learning and managing time on students' shoulders. ESD coordinator Marty Karlin sees the same problems. "This is not going to be for everybody; this is just another alternative," Karlin says. But if Southern Oregon Online School proves to be the answer for just a few students, it will be worth the effort, says Petitt. "From my perspective, the more options we provide for students, the better their chances for success." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA