Ohio DL Schools

Ohio has an impressive group of e-schools available to students who may not be good candidates for traditional schools. I have examined five of them, and here are some of my observations.

The e-schools that we examined for this assignment have been around for a while, and I think that most of them know what they are doing. I particularly liked Connections Academy website because it gave access to great information right there on the home page about test results, curriculum, enrollment instructions and a general overview of the school.  Virtual Community School of Ohio was user friendly because it had plenty of push tabs for easy access to information, but the picture quality was not the best. ECOT won points for having video links on the home page as well as a very large and clear enrollment icon.  The http://virtualschoolhouse.org website also had big tabs, and a current school calendar which is always appreciated by parents. I think that I liked Ohio Virtual Academy the least because it had too many links, and looked disorganized and unattractive.

If I had to choose a favorite between the schools, I think that I like Connections Academy the most because I had heard of it before, and they offer a wide variety of courses. I also liked the website the best because it was user-friendly and had all of the information that I would look for as a parent. I think that I would not be likely to choose Ohio Virtual Academy because the website was not appealing to me, and I probably would tend to think that the curriculum would not be organized either; and, even though that may not necessarily be the case, I guess that first impressions do make a powerful impression.

All of this being said, I do like the idea of e-schools. I believe they are the wave of the future as people become more busy and lifestyles are not a traditional as they used to be. I like having options regarding education. There are some misgivings about whether an online education is a quality education. Also, if my child was going to be educated a home, I would want to be there to take him on field trips, and to help him with assignments and to stay on track when needed.