by Kay Luna, Quad Cities Times
English teacher Sean Chapman is coaching his high school students, helping them narrow down their research paper topics. “I picked Ansel Adams,” one student offers. “OK,” 47-year-old Chapman replies, pausing for a beat. “Let’s talk about that.” But their discussion isn’t a typical one. The students are sitting in two different classrooms in two different schools in Arkansas. Their teacher is working in front of a computer screen, talking to them in real-time via online video from a tiny upstairs bedroom of his Rock Island home. This is a form of online learning, or distance education, which people mostly associate with college-level coursework. Online teaching, like what Chapman does, is rare for kindergarten through 12th-grade education systems in this region, but it’s growing more popular elsewhere across the U.S. and the rest of the world.
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