EdOptions Academy Online Classroom

 During the current pandemic, many K-12, as well as college students, are trying to adjust to a fully online classroom experience; however, I am not new to the scene. I learned via online classrooms for almost six years of my secondary education, so I would like to provide an overview and critique of a program that I was a part of for three of these years: Edmentum’s EdOptions Academy.

 

Edmentum, as a company, offers a variety of products revolving around education, from classes and materials that supplement traditional learning to assessment tools to full-time online school, which is the product I will be discussing today. Their EdOptions Academy works with public schools and can be purchased by the district, thusly students enroll through their public school system, and will receive their diploma from that district’s high school. EdOptions Academy does provide certified teachers for every offered class; however, districts can choose to use their own teachers. That is, students would still follow the lessons, tests, and other resources designed by Edmentum, but their local teachers would oversee their work, grade assignments, and answer students’ questions.

 

While this flexible teacher option may seem appealing, I feel that this is one of EdOptions Academy’s greatest downfalls. My high school opted for this choice, and I found that the problem was my teachers lacked interest in my learning. They taught full-time at the high school, so they had little time left to devote to their online students. My assignments would not be graded for a very, very long time, and my questions would often go unanswered until it was too late. I even had a teacher tell me that he has a lot of traditional students, so he apologized if he rarely checked EdOption Academy. Additionally, because the curriculum is already developed and laid out, most of my teachers did not even know what I was working on in my classes.

I feel that this Edmentum should not allow school districts to assign their own teachers to classes. Though I do not have experience taking classes under their provided teachers, I feel that it would be a much better chance to learn because the teachers know the curriculum and are not overloaded with traditional classes.

 

Despite the teacher-based downfall, I truly love Edmentum’s EdOptions Academy as a learning technology. Their lessons are very informative and have many features within them to keep students engaged, such as videos, graphics, interactive questions/practice assignments, links to articles, a built-in notepad, and a “read to me” option. I feel that these prepare you well for the following mastery test, which is a 5-question quiz that reviews what you just learned. In addition to daily lessons, most class curriculums involve weekly projects and discussions, games that review the material, unit tests, and final exams. I feel that this variety of methods to absorb the material helps students that learn if different ways fully understand the topics covered.

 

Another huge pro to Edmentum’s EdOptions Academy is that it allows students to work at their own pace. It provides tools for tracking progress and monitoring how much time you devote to each class (including a little cartoon man that changes colors and the pace in which he runs/walks based on your progress), as well as due dates for each assignment and test, but it allows students to work as far ahead as they would like. I often utilized this opportunity to give myself long weekends and extended holiday breaks. Additionally, coursework can be done from anywhere, as long as the student has a computer and internet connection. This time flexibility is what makes this program appeal to families who have unique schedules but are uncertain about traditional homeschooling or straying from Common Core standards.

 

Overall, I believe that Edmentum’s EdOptions Academy is a fantastic program for an online classroom. It offers an easy-to-follow curriculum for young learners that provides them with the knowledge they would gain in a traditional school, but with more flexibility regarding when and where they will learn. More and more students are switching to online means of learning (I even heard from one of my old teachers that the number of children in my school district using Edmentum jumped from 100 in the 2019-2020 school year to over 800 this school year!), and I feel that Edmentum’s EdOptions Academy sets a high standard for what online classrooms should be like.

You can learn more about Edmentum and its array of learning tools here!