Mind over miles

NEA Today, Nov 1994 by Lytle, Victoria

Chemistry teacher Linda Kadrlik has a teeny problem teaching lab experiments to students who are in their homes hundreds of miles away.

"When you consider that students are mixing chemicals without supervision in their kitchen, you have to be careful about the kind of experiments you require," she says.

No matter, Kadrlik adds. "There are plenty of hands-on activities you can have them do with safe and simple household products like vinegar and baking soda."

Kadrlik is one of 24 teachers at Alyeska Central School, known as Alaska's Centralized Correspondence School. Located in Juneau, this school is an accredited, public school serving 1,675 students in grades K-12 located all over the state.

In the early years--the school's been open since 1939--communication between teachers and their distant students was primarily through the mail. Today's technology has changed all that.

"Communication with students has improved dramatically from 15 years ago when many families didn't even have a telephone," says Kadrlik.

"Now that we're going to be using e-mail and faxes more frequently. communication is getting even more direct and sophisticated. It blows my mind how much we've improved instruction as a result."

Teachers at the school--members of Alyeska Central School Education Association--design, produce materials for, and teach the school's 101 courses.

Their audience has grown by leaps and bounds since newer technologies have become more affordable. The students are primarily kids isolated in rural areas, teen mothers, dropouts returning to school, and children in families that educate their children at home.

At the beginning of the semester, Kadrlik sends her 22 chemistry students books, balance beams, chemicals, videotapes, and other resources. Because computers are such effective learning tools, Kadrlik arranges to provide a few extra computers that the school owns to families that don't have their own.

To personalize relations with students and introduce herself, Kadrlik usually tapes a video of herself in the school's studio at the beginning of the semester and sends it out.

What's an average "class" like? Kadrlik says students might read five pages in their chemistry study guide, watch a 10-minute videotape about the concepts of mass and weight, then use a balance beam to determine the mass of a beaker of calcium hydroxide.

At the end of the lesson, they turn to questions for review and practice, answer them, and check their work against the key. If they don't understand something, Kadrlik is just a phone call away.

Once a month, Kadrlik schedules an audio conference through the Alaska Teleconference Network. The conversations, which usually last 30 minutes, enable the kids to share what they've been learning. As with most communications technology, they enjoy it.

Within the next month, Kadrlik expects to get most students online, so they'll be able to send in some of their homework via e-mail.

"I'm excited about getting e-mail for my students," says Kadrlik. "The kids who've tried it so far love using it so much I have to remind them it costs money.

"But," she adds, "their enthusiasm for learning is worth every penny