All of the online schools I find have set times you must complete the work and/or a limit to how much work you can do within a school year, as well as age limits. Does anyone know of an online school that does not have those things?
It depends. Some online schools interpret 'online' to mean that students show up in class, like a traditional classroom, and view the teacher via a webcam. Other schools deliver online courses that are asynchronous, but still students must complete work consistent with deadlines. This is because there are team projects, class discussions, and so on, that only make sense when everyone is working to a schedule. Others have effectively put correspondence courses online and students work through at their own pace - but with no interaction with others; it's really a self-study. A variation on this theme is a self-paced study with an instructor on call to help when needed - almost like online tutoring. So it really depends on what you mean by an online school offering online classes. From my own experience, I'd say that the more interactive the online classroom, the more a student learns - but this requires that everyone work to the same schedule.
I mean correspondence courses online, preferably with videos. The only one I have found requires the child to be 5, which is one of the aspects of "normal" school that I don't agree with (grouping/placing children by age instead of intelligence).
I think it would be helpful if you could describe what experiences you are seeking with the online classes. I'm going to assume you have a young child looking for more advanced opportunities, but not to be tied to a schedule for older kids. You might check out listings on www.hoagiesgifted.org. They have a section of internet resources that include classes, but also just fun interactive sites on a huge variety of subjects. Exploring such sites, might fill a need for advanced concepts without the strain of a class schedule. If you are looking for online classes for young gifted kids, you might check out Athena's Advanced Academy. They would have schedules and class times, but the concepts taught are advanced while the work output expected and the activities assigned are more age appropriate.
time4learning we have used that for all of our jr high needs and it has been great for my daughter. My only problem is I can't go back and see just which problem, or answer she got wrong. The rest has been great, and the price is just where we needed it to be. Brandy
Brandy, You can see which problems your child missed at T4L. If you click the backpack, there is an area where you can search for work by date. I think it's the 3rd tab... it's been a while since we used T4L. But in that area, the quizzes and tests have links. If you click on the links, you'll see all of the questions and which ones they got right/missed.
Also, for older children there is http://www.hippocampus.org/ which is free and http://www.thinkwell.com/ which is not.
If you or anyone is looking for a free online astronomy college video course send me a message. It is available to anyone who can press play and you can go through it at your own pace. It doesn't offer tests or quizzes, but you can assign outside reading.
Would you like to create some quizzes to accompany the course? It costs nothing at my system to build and publish quizzes, and I'd be glad to explain how to do it.
Thanks, but it isn't my course. My son is taking it just because he wants to learn more about the topic. Quizzes are unnecessary for him. Sounds like you have a great program though!
