This summer CHS will test-run an online course for Personal Finance. As the district and the nation shifts evermore to the use of online classes, there is a question to be asked: is this transitioning for the better?

Like many schools around the country, state education funds are shifting tens of millions of dollars to implement more technology into the classroom. (NYT)

Although numerous teachers use technology heavily, many teachers are resisting the move to making technology a more prominent part of the classroom. In the state of Idaho, public schools are now requiring students to take some online courses to earn enough credits to graduate, and are also distributing laptops or tablets to all students. (NYT) Many teachers are opposing their new role of using less of the Socratic method, and gathered almost 75,000 signatures to repeal this new law regarding the requiring of technology use in schools.
A past hedge fund analyst named Salman Khan who attended MIT and Harvard, helps me weekly to review math and overall teach me things that are not currently taught to me at CHS such as the Koch’s Snowflake fractal and cosmology. No matter how late, he is always there at www.khanacademy.org. Khan academy is great resource with over 2,600 free videos. As a result, over 100 million lessons have been taught through this sole website.
The aspect of Khan Academy that makes it so revolutionary is that allows students to attain an education at their own pace and learn more about the things they want to study while also taking or reviewing the basic courses. You only need to put forth the effort and the time to learn something new. Through “Sal,” I have learned about fossils in Africa and about the golden ratio. In many ways, educational sites level the playing field because so much knowledge is accessible and taught in an efficient and easy way. Now an Idaho potato farmer’s son can take the course he wanted: Japanese. Online programs open the floodgates of education, and cause people to learn the required materials that maybe would have not had access too.
Khan academy and other online programs are great places to help self-motivated students progress in their learning and help them succeed. Educators will have to continue to find the right and intricate relationship between teaching students in the traditional fashion of lecture and discussion and drawing upon the valuable tools of new educational websites that have more of a focus of teaching with digital utilization.