ACCESS visit

I spoke in a previous blog about the program in Alabama state schools called ACCESS. I had the privilege to visit an ACCESS here locally at Daphne high school in Daphne Alabama a few weeks ago. Mr. Roh is in charge of the lab and was very gracious to give me more of an hour of his time in order to explain how the lab works and even let me try out some of the video conferencing tools. As of right now they are the only one that is fully working and running in the Baldwin County school system but a few other schools have the equipment but have yet to have it in use yet.. I believe that all the schools will have it up and running by next year. But with this technology Daphne high school is able to offer a vast variety of courses that they would not otherwise be able to offer. They can even take foreign language classes like Chinese, because there is a high school teacher in Northern Alabama who is offering the class online. So the student just has to sign up for the online course and are able to take the class with other classmates all over the state of Alabama. I think that is so incredible!
The conferencing tool that they can turn on is called IVC ( interactive video conferencing) It is a video recorder that records the teacher in charge teaching the course and then displays it on big screens around the state of Alabama where ever the students have tuned into that class. So it is a little more interactive then an online course. Mr Roh said that most of their classes are based on advanced courses but they do have a fifth period put aside for student to also catch up so they do not fall behind. They are able to take the courses online if they have not passed it so they can try and graduate on time. He did say that the online classes do take more discipline so if the student is determined enough it is good. but if they do not have self discipline that it is not always beneficial. It was very neat to see this system in action and as the years go on they will have even more possibilities. You will see in this blog where I was able to stand in front of the access lab as if I was the teacher giving the lesson and he was able to capture my picture on the big screen so I was able to see what the students around Alabama would be seeing. He also showed me a little about the touch pad and how you can pull up to eight different classrooms. The technology is so amazing! I am excited to have learned about this system and I would love to get trained to be able to teach some classes across the state to help students that are in school systems that may not have the teachers at their schools to teach the course.