Virtual learning provides an ‘at-home’ education experience

Academic opportunities are virtually a click away at Keewaytinook Internet High School.
The cutting edge high school was the first virtual schools to offer accredited high school courses.
At first only Grade 8 courses were offered but 13 years later the school offers a full range of locally developed courses, which apply to grades 9 to 12. It also offers college and university prep courses and the best part is that students living in isolated, remote communities throughout northern Ontario can access it.
Keewaytinook Internet High School (KIHS) is in partnership with 18 First Nation communities and is always willing to expand its partnerships with communities where there is a need for schooling. The KIHS focus is to ensure students are set up for success and have structured the academics and operations of the school around the word ‘success.’
“We want to make it really difficult for students to not want to succeed,” said principal Darrin Potter. “I say, let’s give them every opportunity to succeed. I always encourage students to try and if they are uncertain about school, they can come back and check out our program again. I really believe we have something for people and we can move students along in their educational journey.”
The school has a multitude of systems and strategies in place to ensure graduation occurs.
The student ratio is one to 12 students for every teacher. Students can work at their own pace with a good support network of coaches, online course applications, tutoring and teachers in the classroom, by video or teleconferencing or by emailing. Educational plans can be based around a person’s needs or goals. Students have the opportunity to access any of KIHS teachers throughout Canada.
Programs are designed to match the students in northern Ontario. “With the small teacher to student ratios, the teacher has a lot of time to work with individual students,” Potter said.
“Our programs are geared towards First Nations students and they are developed by our teachers for the community they are working in. It’s developed right in our programs because the community knows what the students respond to better.”
The opportunity for a student to stay in their home community to work and be an active family and community member is the school‘s number one benefit.
“We try to give students an experience within the community with a local teacher. This will give students cultural and traditional experiences,” said Potter.
There is no cost to a student enrolled with Keewaytinook Internet High School. The accredited courses and academic setting is the same as any registered high school with the Ontario Ministry of Education.
As the school continues to increase its grade offerings and enrolment, more and more students are graduating with their high school diploma and continuing their education. “A lot of our students go on to something like college, university or an apprenticeship,” Potter said.
Students are exposed daily to working in a digital and technical setting. They gain valuable skills from this experience. Aaron Hardy from Rocky Bay is the main IT support for KIHS and a classroom assistant at Fort William First Nation.
“We try to stay competitive,” he said. “We have at least one computer per student, good videoconferencing, video and photo cameras equipment and iPads with different applications on it for numeric and literacy students.”
The computers have virtual chemistry labs, photo and video editing and conferencing. Online platforms like Breeze and Illuminate are used by the school to host virtual courses.
With the accessibility, number of students able to attend a virtual class, wider variety of instructor opportunities and cost effective benefits, KIHS is looking forward to the new Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) northwestern Ontario broadband expansion initiative to bring high speed Internet to more northern Ontario communities.
“We are trying to go wireless in every community to expand the Internet,” Hardy said. “Hopefully by the time spring comes next year, most communities will be on NAN fibre-optic Internet, instead of the satellite Internet.”
“Typically if a student reaches age 13 in northern communities they would need to move to Thunder Bay or Sioux Lookout or wherever for high school. Our Internet program provides the opportunity and the ability for students to remain at home. The focus of the program is to stay at home to get their education and give them that benefit,” Potter said.
The virtual or physical classroom support and experience at schools like the Fort William First Nation campus offers a different experience than the traditional classroom setting.
Students are able to work independently, student interaction occurs in an effective and engaging way; classes can be recorded and viewed at a later time, and they have the benefit of working from home with flexible scheduling.
KIHS is taking every step to ensure remote communities’ students are able to obtain the same educational prospects as urban communities.