ebuffington's picture

A Night to Remember - Agora Cyber School Prom

The ballroom was decorated, the mood lights set, centerpieces on each table, and the smell of food penetrated allAgora Prom 2011 corners of the hall.  While guests arrived dressed in flowing gowns and matching tuxedos they lined up to have pictures taken so that they would always remember this special occasion.  Pictures were taken then groups and couples gathered around tables to enjoy a fine meal and become acquainted with people they had only ‘met’ through online classrooms or school outings.

This was the setting for the Agora Cyber School Proms held in Harrisburg and Philadelphia where sixty and almost one hundred students attended respectively.  When the students first arrived they were getting to know one another, seeing some familiar faces from outings, but largely sticking to the people they knew.  Then the DJ played the Electric Slide and a magical transformation occurred.  The dance floor was filled with colorful dresses and suits twirling and dancing all night long.

shoaglund's picture

K¹² Week Summer Reading Challenge

Kristen Kinney, a K12 senior content specialist, wrote in a reading related post, “low reading scores in lower grades correlate to low performance in upper grades.” With that in mind, and being inspired by The Book Whisperer and her recent reading challenge, I went ahead and created a summer reading challenge just for K12 families.

Introducing the K12 Week Summer Reading Challenge

Here’s how it works:

Scott Holm's picture

7 Educational iPhone/iPad Apps For Your Kids

Smart phones have exploded in popularity over the last few years, and it seems that almost everyone has one now. These devices enable a whole new way of learning on the go, using apps and games with an educational twist.

A few weeks back, I wrote a blog post that listed several of the best educational Android apps, for those of you who have Android phones (like me)! As promised, I’m back today to share with you my list of the best educational iPhone apps, of which there are many.

Without further ado, here are the iPhone/iOS apps that made my list of favorites:

thiggins's picture

Tiffany’s Tips for Preventing Procrastination

I figured I should write this piece because procrastination always seemed to be an area of expertise for me.  You know those times when the teacher says, “You have until Sunday to turn in the assignment for full credit, but it’s due on Tuesday.”  And you say “Oh great, I have to get that done by Tuesday!”  Well I was the student who said, “Oh no problem!  Sunday is forever away.”  What I didn’t really seem to understand was that it’s incredibly stressful trying to get things done at the last minute.  In fact, when assigned a personification paper, I wrote a piece that depicted the way I felt on many nights, here’s an excerpt:

rmunson's picture

Online school flexibility makes traveling possible

When I was a junior in the Idaho Virtual Academy I had the chance to take a two week trip with my grandpa and family to the Panama Canal and the Bahamas. Amazing, right?? One thing though, the trip was for two weeks….in the middle of the school year. Now, normally this would be a big problem and I probably wouldn’t be able to go on the trip; but because of the flexibility that IDVA offered it was possible.

I had three weeks – three weeks to get two weeks ahead in school. A key to success in an online school is to get ahead, not behind. It is so much easier and less stressful to get your school done ahead of time rather than scrambling at the last minute trying to get all of your assignments done in time for grading. So, I made a plan. First I contacted all of my teachers and asked for a calendar of the assignments that would need to be done through the weeks that I would be gone. Then I set up a schedule of everything that I needed to get done for everyday. For example:

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