How To Choose Virtual School Software
More and more K-12 schools are venturing into the electronic classroom. Some do so in order to offer specialized classes for which they can't find or can't afford a teacher for every school building in the district. Others are responding to the pressures of charter schools, some of which are entirely online. Still others are seeking a way to respond to the needs of students who aren't doing well in the traditional classroom. Whatever the motivation, educators will find that their success in online education can be highly dependent on the software they choose.
Whether your school wants to offer a few online classes or an entirely virtual school, there are several factors to consider when choosing virtual school software. Cost is a key factor. School systems that sign up to use the IQity Learning Management Suite, discover that it is free to schools. But educators also need to think about what they get with their software, and how easy it will be to use and administer.
The Cost of Virtual School Software
Virtual school software is offered to schools in a variety of pricing scenarios. Some is simply software that you buy and install on your school computers. Moodle, an open source software, is free to schools, but also has to be installed and maintained by the school. Educators considering these options must keep in mind that there is a cost to hosting virtual classroom software on their own server. Just as an online banking service needs to be available to its customers at all times, so too does an online classroom need to be available to students whenever they are ready to study. That means that the servers must be up and running outside of regular school hours, maintained by the school's IT staff. Furthermore, when there's a computer glitch or a student or teacher has a technical question, the school IT staff must function as the "help desk."
Another model for pricing virtual school software is a licensing arrangement. Similar to the way that businesses pay to use popular software like Microsoft Office, some virtual school software is priced on a per-user basis. This can quickly become very expensive. For example, a central Ohio school district recently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in license fees for its virtual school software.
The IQity Learning Management Suite offers a different model that eliminates these problems for schools and school districts. Because IQity is a hosted service, there is no need for the school to provide staff to maintain a server or act as a technical consultant. Nor is there a cost to buy the software or pay for a license. IQity's Learning Management Suite is free to schools. Schools do pay a small per-student fee for use of the class content available through IQity's learning object repository, Reactor. And that leads us to the second factor educators must consider in choosing virtual school software: what do you get with the software.
A Building or a School?
Every school needs an infrastructure. In a traditional bricks-and-mortar school, the infrastructure is the school building itself, the place that students and teachers gather and learn. In a virtual school, the infrastructure is software that takes the place of a building. Virtual school software is often called a course management system or learning management system. It's the infrastructure that allows students to be enrolled in their courses, teachers to make assignments and monitor participation, students to take tests and receive their grades. So one thing that educators need to look for in virtual school software is how easy it will be for teachers and students to perform these basic functions of the educational process. Before selecting a learning management system, educators should look around its virtual classroom from the perspective of administrator, teacher and student. Are common tasks intuitive, or is a steep learning curve involved?
Every educator knows that a school is much more than a building, though. When you choose virtual school software, you can get just the "building," that is, the software that lets you administer your classroom. Or you can get a more complete package that includes curriculum, the substance of the school. The IQity Learning Management Suite includes award winning curriculum already aligned with state standards. Teachers can easily search for content in Reactor, the learning object repository, and quickly import the lessons they choose into their virtual classroom. IQity also comes with a real-time webcasting tool so teachers can hold class and speak directly to their students. A messaging system allows students to communicate with one another and with the teacher.
On the key factors for choosing virtual school software, IQity is cost-effective, easy to use and offers a comprehensive educational system. To see how your school can use IQity to enter the world of online education, ask for an online demonstration led by one of our elearning experts.