Dec. 13, 2002  
Computers revolutionize education curriculums
By Judy Masterson
STAFF WRITER, News Sun Times, Chicago

LAKE VILLA - Electronic learning is changing the face of education and more and more that face is lit-up by a computer screen. 

The new Alpha Omega Switched-On Schoolhouse, a computerized school curriculum, is being used by six high school-aged students at Calvary Christian School in Lake Villa, thanks to a couple of parents who wouldn't take No for an answer. 

"I fought tooth and nail," said Joyce Fitzgerald, of Ingleside, whose ninth-grade son completed the school's regular kindergarten through eighth grade curriculum last year. Fitzgerald is a staunch supporter of private schools where, she said, parents are allowed more input and students get more help. 

"This is a nice alternative for kids you want to make sure stay out of trouble," said Fitzgerald, who admitted that her 15-year-old son would rather attend public school. 
Billed by Phoenix-based Alpha Omega Publications as "the perfect combination of traditional education and high-tech learning," Switched-On Schoolhouse is tutoring Calvary Christian high schoolers in core subjects including language arts, math, history and science. 

"It's the wave of the future," said Darla Tucker, principal of the 20-year-old school on Monaville Road, and who monitors Switched-On students' progress. "It's a millennial approach to education." 
Calvary Christian, which educates about 60 elementary students, hadn't planned to open a high school this year. "But we had two families who said, 'Our children have grown up in this school and there's no way we are going to put them somewhere else,'" Tucker said. 

Greg Stowell of Ingleside, whose daughter is a freshman in the Switched-On Schoolhouse, set up the networked system for the school. He works in information technology and was familiar with the many training programs now available through computer or online. 
"I've used computerized training for a lot of my certifications," Stowell said. "When I heard about the program I thought it sounded great and a good way to get kids up to speed on technology. It also caters to Christian schools and the values they teach and stand for. It's the best of both worlds." 

Students attend the computerized program for three hours in the morning before heading into regular school electives such as band, study hall and gym. Tuition for the program is about $500 less than the regular fee, Tucker said, which runs about $4,000 per year. 
Taking classes via a computerized curriculum provides more of a challenge for students who either want one or need one. 

"We have found it allows students to work at their own pace," Tucker said. "It's great for those who need remedial help or who are advanced." 
Switched-On Schoolhouse, which is also used by home-schoolers, includes animation and educational games. Students leave their workstations to complete class projects and experiments, or head to the chalkboard to work out a problem with a classmate or teacher. 
Sometimes Tucker will treat the students to a fudge bar session in which they pull up their chairs to talk. 

"They're not just sitting there looking at a computer," Tucker said. "It's very much interactive." 
Parents or teachers can tap in at any time to look at what the student is working on, which is helpful if the student is stalled in a problem. Students are tested before they can move to the next level of study and are carefully assessed to make sure they are on target. 
Roy Stephens, principal of the Alternative Optional Education Center in Waukegan where high school students have been learning through a totally computerized curriculum since 1999, said the program has boosted the district's graduation rate by 25 percent. 

"There is more call for accountability for student progress and more companies are getting on that bandwagon," Stephens said. "I firmly believe if you want students to master a specific objective you have to take the teacher out of the formula. At AOEC, teachers are not involved in dictating what students learn. Everything we teach is from a proscribed curriculum set to state learning standards. 
"We've thrown out the textbooks," Stephens said. "The shortcoming of the traditional school is that the teacher is used as the tool to present the information to the student, with high achievers at one end and low achievers at the other end, and teachers teaching the same thing and all students expected to maintain the same objective. With computer assisted instruction, you can have a whole class working at different levels." Computerized curriculums strong in math and reading literacy are now being piloted in three Waukegan middle schools. 

One common thread of such programs is that they continually gauge student progress. When students fail to master a subject area, the computer program writes a prescriptive curriculum for the particular student, leaving teachers free of a task that is often impossible in a class of 25 or more students. 

Such systems also provide placement tests used to determine curriculum for the year and that allows the teacher to custom-tailor a course schedule for each student. 
Another plus to the system is that it challenges underachievers. Students who may slide in regular class, who may not read an entire text, hand in sloppy homework, or zone-out during a lecture, cannot slide in Switched-On Schoolhouse, which demands that students demonstrate a clear understanding of what they've studied and read. 

The aggressive student could finish the Alpha Omega high school program in two years. In Waukegan, 50 percent of AOEC students, many who might have dropped out of high school without the program, go on to college, Stephens said. 

"These kids are not being pushed along on an assembly line," Fitzgerald said. "My son is forced to read to move to the next level. He can't fade out on the teacher." 
"My daughter says she doesn't like it," said Stowell. "But I think that's because the computer may not be as forgiving as a teacher is." 
The program may be better suited to his son, now a seventh grader at Calvary, and who responds better to visual cues, Stowell said. 

Tucker hopes to see the program eventually hook up with satellite schools through which Calvary Christian students will be learning with other young people across the nation. 
Stowell said that he had some concerns, initially, about how well the computerized school would work. "But now I've seen how well it works," he said. "I'm sure the school, if it wanted to, could easily add this to junior high classes or mix and match it throughout the program. 
"It just gives a lot more options."



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