Using Online to their Advantage

Coronavirus and online classes. These words seem to fit together, but what about in-person and online? These are two contradictory terms that in a normal year most students would not take advantage of but this year many students are and they love it. This year there are about 70 students taking an online class while still in the school building.

Luis Bango, the Online Learning Site Coordinator here at Woodstock, says that there are 48 students taking an online course(s) through Virtual High School (VHS), 22 students through Community College of Vermont (CCV), and 2 students through Vermont Virtual Learning Cooperative (VTVLC).

“I feel that every student should take at least one online class while at Woodstock High School,” Mr. Bango said. He feels that taking an online class helps with time management and self-motivation.

Colby Eaton, a senior, is taking two online classes this year. He is taking Intro to Business through CCV and Personal Finance through VHS. He has never taken an online class before and he said it is “a lot more work than I was expecting.” Colby decided to take these classes because they are not offered at WUHS and he feels that they will help him in college and throughout life.

He said that he finds it pretty easy to contact his teacher but he noted that “I don’t get to have any face to face time with a teacher.” Because he does not have any regular meetings with his teachers, he said that he has to manage his time to work on his classes. Not only is he taking two online classes but he is also taking four AP classes. “It can definitely be overwhelming at times,” he said, noting that he may not have taken Personal Finance if he had considered the workload. He often ends up using the time that is set aside in school for his online classes to get some of his AP classwork done.

Colby is not the only one taking the semester Personal Finance class. Jacob Carey, a junior, is also taking Personal Finance through VHS and he says that the class has “a lot of real-world applications.” This is Jacob’s first online class and he said that he will definitely take more. He also finds it very easy to contact his teacher and says that he gets “almost immediate responses” to his emails. “I like how it is organized,” and “it’s fairly straightforward,” he said. He does see one drawback though: “I hate how just looking at an assignment marks it as done.”

Like Colby, Jacob does not have any meetings with his teacher and he said that prioritization is key to being successful in a class where you don’t have a teacher keeping you on task.

Seamus Powers, a sophomore, is one of the students taking a class through VTVLC. He is taking Japanese which is only one semester. Seamus was fully remote last year and he said that he still finds it easy to contact his teacher but it is harder than last year because his teacher is teaching in person as well as online. He decided to take Japanese because “I have always been interested in going to Japan, especially for a year abroad.” At the beginning of the school year, Seamus was taking a Genes and Diseases class through VHS but he dropped the class because it was too much work. “I like the choices on VHS more but I like the format on VTVLC more,” he said.

Kaity Wade, a senior, is taking English Composition through CCV. “I get a full college credit for it and it is over by December,” Kaity said. Her class is writing four essays and she says that she likes that she can work at her own pace. One thing that she doesn’t like is that “We have a 2-hour long Zoom lecture every Monday after school from 6:00-8:00.” She also said that it is not part of her schedule so she has to find time throughout her day to work on it. Kaity finds it easy to contact her teacher and she “would recommend it to other students.”

The most common online classes students from WUHS are taking this year through CCV are: English Composition, Intro to Business, World Mythology, Forensic Science and Crime Scene Investigation, and Intro to Criminal Justice. The most common class being taken through VHS are: Personal Finance, Chinese I, and American Sign Language.

CCV classes are dual-enrollment classes, meaning that a student will earn college credit while also earning high school credit. “Dual-enrollment feeds two birds,” Mr. Bango said.

All in all, more students are taking online classes than ever and they seem to like it. Most students find that their classes are easy to understand and they provide real-life applications that will help later on in college and life.