With the occurrences of this past year, HR offered Edgenuity as the way to do school from home. Edgenuity was created in 1998 by Jonathan Grayer and has been a top choice for online schools for years. Edgenuity said, “Edgenuity is being utilized by more than 20,000 schools nationwide, included 20 of the 25 largest school districts, and we have served over 4 million students.” My experience with edgenuity had a rocky start but gradually became a really good way for me to learn.
This year has been filled with constant change, and in order for me to feel some normalcy, I decided to do the online school option. I had 2 classes that I couldn’t take through edgenuity and so I joined Google Meets for and the other 5 I did through Edgenuity.
At first I had a really hard time adapting to the layout of Edgenuity because I didn’t have much explanation of how anything worked. I could not log into the actual Edgenuity website but I was able to do everything through canvas. After a few hours I got the hang of it and it made it a lot easier.
Another challenge I faced while doing online school was the social aspects of staying at home. I am a very social person who feeds off of the energy of others and so being in my room all day and not seeing anyone was damaging to my mental health. My family has some immune compromised people living with us and at the time the shot was not available to us, and so I made the decision to stay home. It was really hard to not get to go see my friends and classmates everyday, and I only went outside once a week or so.
because students work at their own pace, their own timeline which
allows students to work freely.
I think the hardest part of online school is not being able to be in-person with teachers and ask questions in the moment without having to email back and forth, then set up a time to meet. All of my lessons were videos of teachers, not from HR, giving a lecture, doing an activity, and then we would have a quiz, and at the end of the week we would have a test.
Each subject had a designated teacher who was the overseer of that subject’s course. In a product review done by Edsurge.com it said, “Schools have the option of adding or removing features to enhance their program. Edgenuity provides teachers to schools for grading assignments, assisting students and communicating with parents or schools can use their own teachers.”
I found that some classes were much easier online than in person. I struggled with chemistry in the first semester, but now I am excelling in the class, so this has not been a negative experience for me. Thinking about the aspect of how hard this year has been for admin I think that giving students the online option was really helpful and smart and choosing edgenuity was a good move.
Returning in-person next year is going to be a challenge due to the flexibility the online option gives students. You could do your classes when you wanted, not in set hours like school normally is. I know that I developed a habit of doing my classes at night. This is not the best habit to develop because it will be a rude awakening when going back to in-person school and having class times return to normal.
It will be a hard start to next year, but overall, I am very excited to return to school for my senior year and see friends and classmates who I have not seen in over a year.
The 2020-2021 school year has been one like no other and will go down in history, but one thing that will always be remembered is the resilience that all of the students have shown this year. A reminder for the online students make sure to have all of your courses 100% complete by Tuesday May 25th. Congratulations to everyone and everything that has been accomplished this year.
Jordan Pazos, staff reporter
