ACCESS Daphne High School

Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide also known as ACCESS, is a wonderful resource for high school students in Alabama. Students can now take many different courses including: core, advanced, honors, AP, dual credit, elective, remediation, and supplemental courses via the Internet. This allows students, no matter where they attend school, to access courses that in the past weren't always readily available. The courses are taught on the web, as well as interactive video conferencing. A blended approach is also utilized to address students varying learning styles. Not only will this help high school students with their current learning objectives but it will also prepare them for college as well. They will learn how to navigate the web and the computer with ease. Not only will the students benefit from this new distance learning program but the teachers will also gain extended resources and will have the opportunity to provide feedback for course improvement. I think that this opens the door to many new and wonderful opportunities for students and teachers here in Alabama.
I visited the ACCESS lab at Daphne High School. Mr. Roe showed me around the lab and demonstrated how the equipment works. The lab is really cool and highly advanced. Unfortunately it is not being used to its fullest potential. It is mainly used as a web based instructional tool. The only class that it is currently used for is Latin which is only an elective. The classes have to be approved by the county and so far not many have been. They have tried to use the interactive video but had many technical issues along the way. There have been problems with getting through the firewalls at each location. Also, their are two different brands of equipment that the schools can purchase: Tandberg and Polytech. However, the two different brands don't work well together. So if each school does not have the same equipment then they have communication problems. The state has required that all students be using the lab by next year but according to Mr. Roe they can only handle 200 students and they have over 300 students in the Freshman class alone. The state just told him to figure it out.

One thing that I thought was very cool was the capability to take virtual field trips. Mr. Roe hopes that more teachers take advantage of this capability. He also wishes that more teachers would be willing to teach in the lab but most teachers are very hesitant. They would have to leave their classrooms and move their things to the lab. Most teachers don't want to do this or they are intimidated by the advancement. Another great thing that is used in the lab is a Promethean Activboard. I thought that it was a wonderful tool with a lot of great features. Mr. Roe hopes that the school can purchase more of these smartboards to use in the everyday classrooms as well! I think that ACCESS is a wonderful tool. However, I don't think that it was a well thought out plan. I believe that the state needs to provide more support to the schools. More research needed to be done to prepare these schools to use this technology. There is so much more that these schools could use this wonderful technology for!! I think that as some of the problems get worked out this will be a wonderful tool for students and teachers!