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Cyber schools lack human touch
Featured here is a letter to the editor. The views expressed do not necessarily represent the view of the ATA. Letters to the ATA News are welcome; please send them to Jonathan Teghtmeyer, ATA editor-in-chief: jonathan.teghtmeyer.ab.ca. Letters may be edited for length and content.
I read with great interest Delivery Matters: Cyber Charter Schools and K–12 Education in Alberta, the Parkland Institute’s paper about online cyber charter schools in the U.S. (“Cyber charter schools threaten education,” ATA News, October 22, 2013).
While we do not yet have privately owned online schools in Alberta, I know that companies are poised to take on that role. There are many educational technology companies that operate in Alberta, such as Castle Rock and its widely advertised Solaro program and Pearson with its Connections Learning. These online profit-based programs are content delivery systems that promise efficient methods of teaching students by personalizing learning through the application of data.
As a teacher, I know that education is more than the delivery of facts and the instruction of skills through online drills and tests—no matter how pretty they look, or how well geared they are to students’ personal weaknesses. True learning is a social activity. Deep learning and the development of the critical and creative thinking skills so necessary in the 21st century come only through interaction between people. While there are applications that may help students with some aspects of their learning, and while communications technology can bridge the gap between student and teacher, it can’t replace human relationship.
The publicly funded Alberta Distance Learning Centre (ADLC) has been in existence for 90 years, providing a vital service to students who are unable to succeed in a traditional school. Using teacher-created print and online resources, and using communications technology to support strong personal contact, certificated teachers provide opportunities to a wide variety of students. Some examples include a wheelchair-bound student whose needs weren’t met in his school; the first girl on a Hutterite colony to receive her high school diploma; students who live an hour away from the nearest high school; kids pursuing their interest in specialized courses, such as design studies and forensics; students who failed a course or a diploma exam; families that relocated to another country for work; and Slave Lake students who needed high school credits to graduate after losing their homes in the 2011 wildfire. Altogether, 60,000 students were enrolled in ADLC last year.
In March, the ADLC budget was slashed when the provincial government cut funding by 57 per cent to schools offering ADLC courses. Today, many Alberta schools can’t afford to offer our program.
In response to Delivery Matters, Education Minister Jeff Johnson told Alberta Primetime, “I’m open to options that create excellent learning opportunities for our kids.” That is hardly reassuring. Combine public funding of private schools, the department’s cut to publicly funded distance education, the ideology of the Progressive Conservative party and the profitability of educational technology and I believe Albertans have great cause for alarm. ❚
Nicola Ramsey is a teacher in Slave Lake, Alberta.
