In virtual space, there is no place to hang back. This is the only setting. You get to know your students through their writing. You get to know whether they are really learning the subject. Bruce Droste, the director of the Virtual High School, said the program is most popular in schools with fewer than 1,100 students - which account for about 80 percent of schools in the United States.
Giant schools have a lot of courses in their course catalogs.
But smaller schools are finding they can jump into collaboration without having to build new wings, hire new teachers, and find the students to fill the classes. Joyce Kasman Valenza is the librarian at Springfield High School in Erdenheim. Her column appears each week in tech.life.