In the digital age, even school can be done on the Internet.

Taking college courses online has been popular with adults with busy schedules since this became an option; the online courses are less strict time-wise, allowing them to keep up with both their education and their jobs. But recently, online courses are becoming more popular with high school students for a variety of reasons.

For some, taking an online class may be an alternative to summer school—a way to make up credits necessary for graduation. For others, the course level they are eligible to take is not available at WS, so an online class is the only way they can take it.

Senior Ingrid Benitez took English 11 online last year, and is currently taking Physical Education online. She has a belt-like sensor to track that she is doing the physical activity necessary, and she must conduct a weekly face-to-face online chat with the teacher. The class is mostly independent work, with homework due at the end of every week.

“It’s very different, because you don’t have a teacher in front of you. Instead of talking to your teachers in class, contact is only e-mail,” said Benitez.

A group of students takes Advanced Accounting, a class that students who have already gone through Accounting 1 are eligible to take. They use computers in business classrooms, during the Accounting 1 classes taught by Latrease Rich. The class they are taking, however, is completely separate from the Accounting 1 class that occupies the rest of the classroom.

“There’s no real teacher talking to you. It’s all through Blackboard,” said Advanced Accounting student senior Danny Cardenas.

During class time, they do book work, take notes, and complete application assignments, such as inputting data into Microsoft Excel. All of these assignments are given through Blackboard, and again submitted through Blackboard when completed. While they are given class time to complete the work, the students are essentially given the option of when they do their work, since a teacher doesn’t directly regulate the class.

“You have more time, because you have the choice to do the work at home,” said Cardenas.

While the online classes are definitely not conventional classroom learning systems, students do not seem to dislike them. Of course, any independent study class requires responsibility and dedication.

“Students who take online courses need to be more academically responsible because there isn’t a teacher there saying you need to do this, you need to do that,” said Rich.