[ Music ]
>> [Background Music] I've watched my son on the computer.
>> Facebook, Myspace.
>> I'm on the computer a lot, talking to my friends.
>> I like to look up articles on Wikipedia and just read.
>> My cell phone's always, like, attached to my hip,
texting and calling people.
>> They like technology.
They were born with it.
They can't live without it.
>> But they feel empowered to use the technology,
and it's part of their everyday life.
>> And unfortunately, schools have not changed much.
>> The standards are the standards,
and that's what the students have to meet.
>> We know that there's a gap
between how students are expected to work and learn
in school environments and then how they actually live outside
of the classroom.
>> I use technology more outside of school
than I do inside of school.
>> A textbook or a chalkboard, these are things
that don't engage kids through the way
that it maybe did 20 or 30 years ago.
>> Students are very different student.
>> The curriculum isn't going to change.
It's the delivery that has to change.
>> It's a real challenge for literally every educator
in almost every grade level.
>> What's it all about?
>> I started to struggle with English,
and then my dad found this thing online.
And he said that I could do it.
>> Did you know after completing a homerun,
even though the player has run a fair distance,
his displacement is still zero?
>> I found out about the online course
in the Michigan Virtual High School through my principal.
>> What comes about this knowledge anyway?
>> That first day and got online, I could hear him
in the other room saying, wow, mom, I like this one.
This is my favorite.
>> Genes are made of DNA, which stands
for deoxyribonucleic acid.
>> I learned and learned.
And so, when I took the post test,
I knew everything like that.
>> We're giving the young person an opportunity to learn how
to learn in a completely different environment.
>> That oxygen gives us energy,
by reacting with glucose in our liver.
>> I thought taking the class online was a good experience.
>> I think it's a good way to learn, and you can do it
on your own time, which makes it easier.
>> It was a very comfortable schedule because I was able
to manage my own time with it, instead of having to worry
about going to class at a certain time.
>> How can you not adopt it?
>> There are a lot of ways that we can offer content
to our students and evaluate their learning.
>> We communicate through email.
We communicate through the message boards,
the discussion boards on the course.
>> We took a couple of tests.
They were like a voice chat system.
>> To talk to each other with our teacher.
>> Show us, asks us questions and we'll answer them
in Chinese, [foreign language spoken].
"Hello, it's nice to meet you."
>> We're starting to introduce wikis and blogs.
>> They're talking about something other
than what they did today, and they're talking about math
in the online environment.
>> I learned something today.
>> We can offer content in the form of RSS feeds,
which provide up-to-date information for them.
We can attach documents, videos, pictures,
a lot of different types of instruction.
>> And I stay on task with them.
I'll actually turn in all my assignments
like a month before they were even all due.
>> What I liked about working at home on the computer is
that if you were to miss class, you wouldn't miss
out on learning something.
>> It teaches you to be responsible and to stay on task.
>> Students came initially to hustle and tech,
I literally went out onto the streets and recruited them.
If I saw a kid who I thought was 16 to 19,
I went, are you in school.
And if they said no, well, you are now.
Drop outs really are not remedial.
I would say a lot of them are really borderline
ingenious level.
One of the reasons why they're dropping out is
because they're bored stiff.
They've gotten really good
at circumventing traditional education.
Really, once you engage them and show them
that they have this big old world out there and that the key
to it is technology, they go for it.
>> Online students oftentimes are looking to meet a need
that has not been met in the traditional classroom.
>> Coming from a really small school,
you don't really have too many opportunities
to take what you're necessarily interested in.
>> Usually, I'm a fast worker and need to wait
for other people in the classroom.
So I can do my own speed and do my own time.
>> You feel like you're getting it more, and you don't have
as much interruptions.
>> It was just really comfortable to have
that aspect of the education.
>> I was just so busy with organizing prom,
organizing senior year,
class trip that VHS gave me time to do that.
>> When I get back to school, it'll be a little easier
because I will have done all the math
that I needed to do in 5th grade.
>> I think after they put themselves out there
in the online environment that even in a classroom,
they would be more willing to ask some of those questions.
>> Welcome to this online professional development course.
>> I was talking about Michigan Learnport
to my superintendents in my county.
>> Teachers will learn how to teach challenging concepts based
on the Michigan merit curriculum content expectations
for algebra one.
>> One of the greatest advantages
through the online learning is the freedom it gives them to fit
in their own window of time to do the studying
or reviewing of materials.
>> Our ultimate goal in teaching mathematics is for students
to acquire transferable knowledge.
>> This is a no brainer, you guys.
This is free professional development that is meaningful.
>> And the savings in cost traveling great distances
across the state to meet professional
growth requirements.
>> It has every curriculum
that you could want professional development for.
>> Success for all students should be the end result.
>> Education has to provide for what's next.
And what online learning does,
it provides them with the what next.
So you don't hold a student back.
You give them a hands-on experience,
and then they can now learn to teach themselves,
which is the whole concept of education.
>> The fact of the matter is,
the technology is not going away.
It's becoming cheaper.
It's becoming more powerful.
This is not a fad that we're dealing with.
This is life as we know it as we go forward.
[ Music ]