Warren New Tech High School

Warren New Tech High School
Taken from http://www.warrenk12nc.org/schools.php?id=12

This weekend, a few coworkers and I traveled to Lake Gaston. On the way, we passed a school called Warren New Tech High School One of my coworkers mentioned that her nephew had gone there, and that the students spent their days in computer labs taking web-based classes. After we arrived at the house and got settled in, I noticed a book sitting under one of the side tables called Ferry Tales and Other Lake Gaston Folklure, written by the students of Warren New Tech High School. The students interviewed lifelong residents and compiled a history of the area. I knew that I needed to do some more research about this school when I got home. I had a few questions about this school that I wanted to be able to answer.

The first question that lingered with me for most of the weekend was why these students went to a physical building to do mostly web based learning. There are only 14 teachers at this school for more than 200 students. Surely these classes could be to the students at home. Did they really need to come to the physical building 5 days a week? I did not need the internet to answer this question. On the way home, I looked at the environment a little more closely. This school is situated in a very rural, high poverty area. Chances are that many of the students attending this school do not have a computer at home with a fast enough internet connection to stream video and participate in online class. This also means that these students have likely not had some of the same experiences with technology as their age group peers living in more affluent areas. Clearly this building is no waste of space, rather a valuable resource for students who want to be able to compete in a world that requires use of technology to be successful, but might not be able to afford to do so on their own.

The cover of Ferry Tales and Other Lake Gaston Folklure
Taken from lulu.com

My next question was about how the classes are taught at WNTHS. My coworker knew that it was mostly computer-based, but did not know much more about this. While the school's website does not describe the classroom or computer lab settings, it does describe the school as using Project Based Learning (PBL) to help students learn 21st century skills including early college coursework and leadership. This is where the book really started to make sense. While writing this book, students must have learned to use and apply a wide variety of the 21st century skills that the school seeks to instill. For example, the students must have learned to ask appropriate interview questions and edit the responses in a manner that fit the stories in the book. The students also needed to use publishing software to both compose and format the book for publishing. The book is available in a few online sources and also in local businesses, which means that students had to work with these businesses and websites to sell the book that they had created.  Other projects the students do include creating and presenting business ideas and models. All of these projects teach students how to use these skills they are learning in contexts which they may encounter in their later careers.

This idea of PBL reminded me of the Participatory Learning Culture (PLC) that Curtis Bonk mentions in the introduction to The World is Open. These students are learning these skills by using them, and this is one of the trends in education that has resulted from the use of technology. I think that WNTHS is a great example of implication of participatory learning at the high school level. I wonder what Bonk would think about this school?

WNTHS is a very interesting school, and I'm glad that we drove past it. I do, however, still have a few questions about this school. I don't think I will find an answer to these questions, but they are interesting to think about, so to close I leave you with this:

1. I could not find any data about the demographics or performance of the students at WNTHS high school or in Warren County Schools. These students may be succeeding at their projects, but are they succeeding on EOCs or SATs? Are they getting into college after graduation?
2. Does it really matter whether these students have good test scores? They're clearly learning valuable skills, and as much as that should be enough, is it?
3. How are the classes administered? Do the teachers simply used web-based instruction resources such as blackboard, or do the students also participate in online classes through other institutions?