I was initially intrigued by the idea of an open sourcehigh school, as I watched the videos about the various open source schools popping up around the country. However, the videos were not clear about the fact that the students did not actually attend a physical school -- the students sit at home or in a library and view the curriculum over a computer while a teacher can be several cities or even countries away, and there are no fellow students around. I thought the videos showed students in a classroom, so when the teachers interviewed started talking about "brick and mortar" schools, I became very confused. I ended up doing further research, and found other websites that explained the concept of these open source high schools in more depth, and by the time I was done reading, my opinion had drastically changed. I do not think that the concept of the open high school will work overall.
First, if students are not in a physical classroom with teachers looking over their shoulder, not all students will be motivated to do the work. The students that will do the work are the bright, motivated students who don't need extra attention. So, we are giving the already bright and motivated students an advantage with the open high school, but I think it is presenting a disadvantage to any student who may need that extra motivation or they will not succeed. Also, there are students who may not have grown up with access to technology, and may have a learning curve disadvantage. If they don't have a teacher physically standing there showing them how to use the technology, how can we guarantee they will be successful with the technology?
Further, I agree with other comments I have seen that students, especially at the high school age, need socialization skills. I think it is already a problem that teenagers spend so much time on cell phones, texting, and instant messaging. They are already losing the ability to have a face to face conversation. I go out to dinner with my younger sister who grew up with more access to this technology than I did, and I can barely get her to have a 20 minute conversation with me because she can't stop looking at her phone every 5 seconds. This drives me crazy, and will surely impact her ability to get a real job someday. Even students who are home-schooled tend to meet at physical locations for P.E. or other social activities, because of the importance of socialization.
Therefore, I don't think that education should move towards these open high schools in this format, where the teacher is not in the same room as the student. Now, if the students were in the same building as the teacher, and they all had computers and were still doing their work on computers in a paperless setting, but still with the teacher there to help them one-on-one, and with other students there to socialize with -- that would be different. I think having the free and open source software to build curriculum from is wonderful, and more school districts should use it, regardless of whether they are an open school or not. They could save so much money!
My husband is a computer programmer and a huge proponent of open source software (I have heard many tirades on the "evils" of EULAs and big software companies), and the open source software community can definitely benefit the education field, both in the creative programs it can contribute (if a teacher needs a feature in a program, they can just mention they need it in a forum, and I bet someone can add it) and in the money that can be saved by using open source software.
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