Virtual+High+Schools

=Virtual High School and Virtual Universities=
 * (submitted by Amy Amodeo)**

Definition:

 * Virtual High School, Inc.** (VHS) is a [|non-profit corporation] headquartered in [|Maynard, Massachusetts]. It was founded in 1996 by Sheldon H. Berman and Robert Tinker with the support of the U.S. Department of Education. Its mission is to develop and deliver standards-based, student-centered online courses.

VHS claims students from 29 states and 23 countries, averaging nearly 10,000 students per year, and offers over 200 semester and year long courses intended to augment rather than replace a school's curriculum. Some of the courses offered by VHS include 101 Ways to Write a Short Story, AP Biology, AP Economics, AP French, AP Spanish, AP Psychology, Art and the Internet, The Holocaust, and Basic Mandarin Chinese, to name a few.

Professional development courses are offered for the teachers to learn, practice and master the design and delivery of online courses. Courses are delivered on a weekly calendar schedule where students work together asynchronously. This allows students from around the globe to take courses whenever and wherever they have Internet access.


 * Learn more about VHS at** [|**http://www.govhs.org/Pages/WhyVHS-Home**]

The term "**virtual university'**" characterizes an organization that provides higher education on the Internet. Some of these organizations are truly "virtual", existing only as loosely tied combines of universities, institutes or departments that provide together a number of courses over the Internet. Others are real organizations with a legal framework, yet named virtual because they appear only on the Internet.

The attribute "virtual" in virtual university has two dimensions. One is the organizational dimension, as expressed in terms like virtual organization and [|virtual enterprise]. The other dimension refers to instructional media: "Virtual" is used for a type of higher education where courses are delivered via Internet. It should be noted that studying as such is far from being "virtual". Students taking so-called virtual courses are doing "real" work to get their degrees, and educators preparing and teaching those courses spend plenty of "real" time in doing so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_High_School http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_university
 * Sources:**

Related Topics

 * [|Distance education]
 * [|Virtual Global University]
 * [|Virtual education]