ACCESS

After looking over the ACCESS website, I am very excited about the learning opportunities we are developing with the increasing development of technologies. This program is bringing the classroom to the kids/students who can not go to the classroom for whatever the reasons may be! According to this site, Alabama is doing very well in trying to make sure that our schools are readily equipped to handle this program. After all, when you find away to offer Advanced Placement courses to a school that otherwise would have never given its students the option to learn at an advanced level , only good can come from its benefits!

I think that my biggest misconception about this type of learning was exactly how the classes would be offered. This will not only be an on-line "log in and work" sort of program; Video Conferencing is also offered. Here is a picture for an example of video conferencing so that you can get a better idea of how it would work:






There are several benefits to the video conferencing! Also, with it on video or on the web, think about this point that the site pointed out; the classes, experiments, lessons, etc., will never be just a one time hit-or-miss kind of lesson. The students can repeatedly log back on to review. Wouldn't it be nice to have that option in all of our classes!

Offering classes like this can only help our students exceed in a way that has probably always felt impossible to the very rural communities before now. Imagine having a gifted child that you know could be doing so much more than just these regular high school courses, but not being able to help them fulfill their potential because of distance. Think of all of the college applicants who needed those scholarships but could not receive them due to lack of AP courses on their transcripts. Now, maybe this will allow all students to have the exact same opportunities regardless of money or location!

The site also talks about where they are planning for 24 of their pilot sites to go to start off with. Take a look at these locations and hope there will be many more added in the future!