When a student is enrolled in the AIS program they are assigned to a class. The teacher is certified in the subject area of the class. This online class has three components: the Online Class, Virtual Classroom and the Instructional Program. All three of these components work through an Internet browser like Internet Explorer or Netscape. A couple of 'plug-in' programs are used and are available for free over the Internet.
The real-time, interactive virtual classroom will be used by the teacher to meet with students or with the whole class. This program enables the teacher to talk to the class while they display material or write on a white board. Everyone in the class hears the teacher at the same time. All material shown and the everything written on the eBoard is immediately displayed on everyone’s computer screen. The eBoard includes the ability to display images, draw lines, point and shapes and type text. The teacher can also run a program on their computer and share the program with everyone in the class. The instructor can also access web pages to share with the class. This becomes an excellent tool to help students run the learning system. The teacher can create breakout sessions and assign students to small group discussions and/or work. Students can type messages to the teacher, raise their hands to ask for help and respond to teacher generated poll questions.
The features that are available to the teacher can be assigned by the teacher to any student, or even all the students. This allows the students to ask or answer questions in their own voice, write on the eBoard, display their work or show a web page to the class. All in all, the virtual classroom is truly analogous to a physical classroom and creates a very effective teaching & learning environment.
The Online Class and the Virtual Classroom are support structures for the online Instructional Program. This anytime, anywhere computer aided instructional program consists of an Internet-deliverable instructional management system supported by standards-based assessment tools and core curriculum for grades 1-12. The Learning System program contains over 3,400 lessons and 78,000 exercises, which add up to more than 4,300 hours of technology-based instruction.
A key component of the instructional courseware is its ability to assess students against State standards, diagnose student strengths or weaknesses and prescribe individual lesson plans for students based on their specific needs. This component has been developed with an emphasis on focusing assessments to specific learning objectives, automating the prescription of curriculum targeted to an individual student's mastery level.
In all cases, "smart testing" is deployed and assessment tests configured to branch up and down "skill trees." This branching allows educators to identify the lowest levels that the student has not mastered and the highest levels of mastery in particular curriculum areas. After completing the assessment test, students are assigned, automatically, a customized course of study containing student-specific activities in each of the following curriculum areas. All courseware curriculum resources can be assigned and customized from the management system by the teacher. New subjects and/or resources can be added or existing instructional resources changed at any time to meet the needs of the student or the school. The software is delivered in a consistent format so students learn one interface for all lessons. Students, and their parents, can access homework assignments and view their academic progress from their homes, media centers, libraries, or community centers by simply logging onto the Internet at any time.