A History of the Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School

Darren Cannell, Assistant Principal at Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School , 2115 McEown Ave, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, S7J 3K8. dcannell@scs.sk.ca

Arthur L. Costa (Creating the Future)

The Internet continues to gain popularity as an instructional medium for high school students. Recognizing this, the Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School offers Saskatchewan Education Curriculum courses taught on the World Wide Web by teachers in our high schools. This teaching of courses via the Internet has allowed SCCS to enhance educational opportunities in the province of Saskatchewan.

The greatest advantages of distance education or training on the web are:

• Smaller Rural schools with one or two students requesting a course can fulfill the request by having a content expert teach students from all over the province.
• Some subject teachers are in great demand. By combining smaller classes SCCS has relieved some of the stress in our own division as well as others.
• Flexibility of 24 hour, seven day a week accessability fits a lot of students' tight schedules.
• Not being tied to a physical building allows traveling athletes, stay at home mothers and full time workers the chance to complete their education.
• Schools have the opportunity to lower class sizes by offering the cyber alternative.
• A energizing project for experienced teachers to become involved in.
• Teaching courses on the net is like teaching in the largest library in the world, which allows for resource-based learning like never before.
• SCCS brings the global environment into the classroom.
• Cyber classes create an web environment which motivates and inspires students to become lifelong knowledge builders.
• Through the use of technology and the Internet, the student inquires, encourages, collaborates and engages in active learning with their peers and their instructors.
• The Internet enables education to occur in places where it normally does not.
• It extends resources where there are few, expands the learning day and opens the learning place.
• Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School, using a multi-media approach, connects people, communities and resources through the Internet, to give teacher and students multiple paths of learning.
• Parents take the role of guide and facilitator at home, interacting with the teacher and assisting their children in educational opportunities.

Rationale for the Cyber School

• Cyber School learning fosters diverse ways of acquiring knowledge.
• The organization of the courses permit students to dictate their rate of study.
• The Cyber School course offerings enhance students' program selections.
• Students who must temporarily relocate with their families will still be able to take courses through the Saskatoon Catholic School Division.
• Students who are home-schooled are able to expand their educational opportunities.
• Advanced students in grade eight are able to study courses which are at their academic level.

Cyber School students are characterized as being able to:

• use technology with ease,
• set their own learning goals (independent learners),
• create, interpret and reorganize knowledge,
• plan and work collaboratively, and
• undertake additional, non-teacher directed work.

Course Offerings

Registration Process

• Students registration is done via the Web site.
• Students need permission from their home school to take Cyber School courses
• Due to the ever changing nature of cyber education, it is recommended that students access the current information provided on the Web Site to verity the course selections.

Web site: http://www.scs.sk.ca/cyber/home.htm

The History of Cyber School

S.C.C.S. was the vision of the Saskatoon Catholic School Division. In August of 1999 they empowered Darren Cannell to explore the possibility of offering courses using the Internet as a vehicle to deliver distance education. Course development began in January 2000 with four courses and four developer/teachers. In August 2002 the first courses were taught with great success. Since then, the Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School has expanded, offering seventeen courses and serving over seven hundred students.

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