The Word - Advanced Academics: Should the Future of Teaching be Online?

Opinion

Advanced Academics: Should the Future of Teaching be Online?

Abby Hanson - November 20, 2009

If you have the time and want to learn something that is not provided at school, Advanced Academics might be for you.

Over the summer, a letter was sent out to GHHS students asking if they wanted to enroll in an online class. The classes provided were German, Mandarin, Latin, Personal Psychology, and Introduction to Graphic Design. I decided that it would be fun to take the graphic design class.

There were so many people that signed up for the classes, that the school created a sort of lottery to choose people to enroll in the class of their choice. Only 20 people were chosen and I was one of them.

My semester class began on September 10. The first thing I had to do was go through tutorials and download a program called Inkscape. The tutorials explained my online locker, how to communicate with my teacher, and the other basics of the site.

Inkscape is a design program that is similar to Microsoft Publisher or Paint. The program is extremely annoying for various reasons, mainly because it is entirely too hard to make a simple curved line. I am working on getting the hang of the complicated software despite the fact that I think something else should be used.

At first, I did not understand the Advanced Academics website and this caused my first assignment to be late. I did not realize that I had to finish reading a section before I got to the homework.

The task was to visit an art museum and answer the given questions about themes and the differences between art and design. The assignment frustrated me because I did not want to actually go to an art museum; when I did get the chance to go, I went to the Short North and every museum was closed at the time. I had to wait a couple of days to finish the project, but the class is a work-at-your-own-pace type of thing and my grade did not drop because of that.

I have not had any other homework like that, but I have had a few "design file" projects about the tools of design.

In the most recent, I was asked to try to change the meaning of a heart. I took pictures through a heart-shaped window in black construction paper and cut hearts out of random magazine pages. I had to have 60 different images and then write a summary essay about how the hearts made me feel and whether or not they contradicted the stereotype of love.

The project was tedious and it was turned in a day late, but I enjoyed taking the pictures and being creative.

My first unit test consisted of five essay questions. An example is, the first asked me to describe the importance of conducting an audience analysis before starting a design.

The test took over an hour and it stressed me out. I did pretty well on it, but I am not looking forward to the Unit 2 test on October 31 over the tools of graphic design.

I recently finished reading the line, shape, color, space, texture, and type sections of the unit. I liked reading about texture, color, and shape, but the other parts were long and boring. Type (meaning fonts and things) was the worst because I had to read eleven pages about the history of type, the intricate details of fonts, and different groups of type.

I had a few assessments over the tools along the way and these consisted of 25 multiple-choice questions. I think that the assessments are very helpful because you are able to flag questions that you have trouble with, then go back into the reading material and look up the answers.

Over all, Advanced Academics is a good system, but I think it is easier to learn by being taught in a classroom rather than reading a ton and looking at graphics.