Ohio DL Schools

Students in our Educational Technology class have been investigating Distance Learning and were asked the two following questions regarding five of the popular online learning services available in Ohio(Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, Ohio Virtual Academy, Ohio Connections Academy,Virtual Community School of Ohio, and Virtual Schoolhouse: Which of the five DL options would you pick for your child? why? I would selectOhio Connections Academy (OCA) which is accredited by NCACS and AdvanceED. Their site says that they are the only statewide Ohio eSchool rated Excellent in 2010 by the ODE whose School Year Report Card has shown OCE to add more than a year of academic growth. They also claim to be the "only Ohio virtual school to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)"from 2006-2008. An eSchool needs to have excellent technology (using Connexus®) and their website is most impressive in this regard. It was the most comprehensive of the sites we evaluated and the lesson samples displayed there were the strongest, including clear steps for the student, the learning facilitator at home, and enrichment including Teachlet® Tutorials. Ohio Virtual Academy (OHVA) might also seem a good choice in that their site lists among accreditations that they are the "top-performing statewide e-school in Ohio for the fifth year in a row" and that ODE designated them Effective in their 2010-2011 grade card. However, I felt that the sample lesson plans exhibited at the OCA website contained more helpful detail and overall better design. Their OVHA site is also laid out in a user-friendly manner and they offer an advanced, 24/7, customer and tech-support. I simply prefered the quality of the sample lessons offered at OCA. Electronic Classroom of Tommorrow (ECOT) would be my third choice. They claim to be the largest eSchool based in Ohio and the "first online charter school in the nation to graduate students." They are accredited by aAdvanceED and the North Central Association (NCA), and are members of the Ohio Coalition for Quality Education. Their technology (IQity®) used for delivery seems to be from a well-established provider, however, I the layout of the site seemed weaker than the other two and didn't inclue sample lessons at all. -which of the five DL options would you NOT pick for your child? Why? Two eSchools that I would probably not select are those that seem to be run to meet needs in one area of Ohio: Virtual Community of Ohio (VCO), is run by Reynoldsburg schools but much of their website seems nonfunctional. It has a link to a Annual Report and a Report Card but neither were active and I could find no other information on accreditation. When I went to their site and tried to launch the sample lessons on "Biomagnification and Mercury" and "Solving for the X-intercept" neither would launch. Attemping to view the textbook samples, I received the message 404: Not Found. Virtual School House (VSH) said that it was developed to serve special education needs. It has a brick and morter school located in Cleveland but their website appears not to be kept up-to-date. For instance, the 5th grade page still wishes students a Happy New Year. I also found no infomation on accreditation and links for curriculum showed state benchmark/indicators but did not have lesson plan samples.