Ashley MacQuarrie's picture

Meet the Hostetler Family: Making the Switch From Homeschooling to an Online Public School

Submitted by Ashley MacQuarrie on Thu, 05/02/2013 - 8:14am

What led you to choose an online school?

For some parents, it’s a student who learns in a different way or struggles in a classroom setting. For others, it’s the need for a safer environment or a more personalized learning experience. Some choose an online school right from the start of their child’s education; others come to it after the traditional options have failed.

K12 Online School Family: The Hostetlers For the Hostetler family, the journey to K12 began 14 years ago, before their children were even born. Tennille, a mom of two, shared that she was a senior in college when she made the decision to give her future children a different kind of school experience. While still in college, Tennille taught biology (her major) to an extraordinary group of homeschooled students. She observed their eagerness to learn, their maturity, and their kindness towards one another, and decided she wanted the same for her own children someday.

Years later, despite a background in teaching and a Master’s degree in Education, Tennille found that homeschooling on her own was not working for her family. The expense and time-commitment involved in choosing and purchasing curriculum and lesson-planning for multiple grade levels was taking its toll. That’s when she found K12, and our partner school, Oregon Virtual Academy.

In our interview, Tennille shares her thoughts on the K12 program, and offers some advice for other parents on transitioning from homeschooling to an online school.

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Announcing the What’s Your Story Winners!

Submitted by Stephanie Hoaglund on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 1:00pm

The packages are on their way to our What’s Your Story? ‘Most Liked’ winners. These 10 lucky people are about to receive one of 10 Kindle Fire HDs given away because their submitted story received the most likes.  

Congrats to the giveaway winners and thank you for sharing your stories. All of us at  K12 recognize that what success looks like is unique and is based on each individual student and their story and all of the shared stories reflect just that. We are honored to have a part in shaping the future generation. 

What's Your Story Kindle Fire HD

Here are the winners' stories: 

  • The Mendoza Family from California shared two stories crediting K12 and online school with helping their twin daugthers thrive. They are "happy, positive and motivated to learn things we hadn't dreamed of in public school, and the world has become an exciting place for them!". 
Ashley MacQuarrie's picture

8 Tips for Taking Better Pictures with Your Phone

Submitted by Ashley MacQuarrie on Wed, 05/01/2013 - 10:29am

The mobile photography explosion has revolutionized the way we capture the important (and not so important) events in our lives. Smartphone owners (and a great many “dumb phone” users too) now carry cameras with them everywhere they go, cameras with the ability to share photos with the world in an instant.

As a result, people today take many more pictures than we used to. We take photos of ourselves, our kids, and the big and small events in our day, right down to what we ate for lunch.

While camera phone technology is continually improving, these devices do have their limitations. Still, the best camera is the one you have with you. An iPhone is better than a Canon DSLR when the Canon is at home in a bag!

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Meet Margie Jorgensen, Chief Academic Officer at K12

Submitted by Deanna Glick on Mon, 04/29/2013 - 9:25am

'Meet the K¹² Community’ is a regular blog series featuring students, learning coaches, teachers, curriculum specialists and anyone else who plays a role in making online education a reality for children worldwide.

Profound changes in demographics and the world have brought about lofty challenges in education.

In a recent video for K12, Margie Jorgensen talks about those changes and related challenges in school districts across the country. She believes K12 can make a difference and meet students diversified needs as the world – and education – continue to evolve.

Part of that, she believes, will happen through quality testing. Margie fell in love with statistics, data and tests as she pursued her own education and eventually found success building tests to access educational success. Now, she’s proud to become a voice and advocate for “doing what’s right for students” at K12 and remove the fear and barriers around testing. Tests, she says, “can be fun and less scary.”

Ashley MacQuarrie's picture

Can SimCity Inspire the Next Generation of Engineers and Urban Leaders?

Submitted by Ashley MacQuarrie on Wed, 04/24/2013 - 10:44am

Ah, SimCity, the game in which you are mayor and architect, urban planner, zoning commissioner, and city treasurer, all rolled into one. For those of us who played the original games in the 1990s, SimCity might bring back fond memories of skillfully creating and managing your urban utopia, or frustration as you struggled to build a metropolis and keep those fickle citizens happy, while dealing with the occasional natural disaster (or Godzilla attack.)

Originally released in 1989 and spawning numerous spin-offs and successors over the years, a new 2013 edition of the iconic city-building game was launched last month.

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