Virtual Schools: Reflections on Key Issues

A VLE can be understood as a computer-accessible cognitive context where students interact with mediated representations rather than their experiential equivalent. For students of school age, an emergent variation is the Virtual School, where the internet is used to deliver some or all of the courses that would traditionally be offered in a “bricks-and-mortar” school in face-to-face mode with a teacher. Increasingly, Virtual Schools are an available alternative to conventional schools. Unlike their physical counterparts, Virtual Schools are, for the most part, not restricted by the restraints of timetables, bells, uniforms, or other organizational characteristics of face-to-face teaching.

Virtual Schools have shown considerable growth in recent years, particularly in the U.S.A. (Clark, 2001) and Canada (SAEE, 2002). They are seen as having identifiable advantages. Mittleman (2001) refers to a Virtual School in Israel as “breaking barriers of time and place” (p. 84), while Florida High School in the U.S.A. uses the motto “any time, any place, any path, any place” (Florida Virtual School, 2003). Virtual Schools have been described in quite glowing terms.