Broward schools virtual counselor

How could Broward schools virtual counselor change online schooling and online school management systems?

IBM's Virtual Counselor was recently launched. IBM have a development program called ‘Reinventing education’. It is a great piece of online school management software, which allows everyone to track an individual students performance.

How do parents use the system?

The Broward schools virtual counselor system allows parents to log into the school website and monitor how well their child is performing in a real time environment. The software lets them see how many days of the child has taken – and if these had legitimate excuses, or not, or if the child always arrives late.

The parents can monitor their children’s performance online, and so even the most hectic of parents, with very busy lives, can notice where and when problems are arising and take the time to make an appointment with the school. The system was very interesting to read, as it formed a ‘rolling report card’. This means that I guess in reality a school could reduce the number of paper reports issued, as only teacher comments need to be added.

How would a school use the online school management system?

The broward schools virtual counselor is also designed to track whole class and whole school performances. This would have an impact on how schools were assessed as in reality, it means any government official could track a school or a district from his desk and identify which pupils, classes or schools were requiring additional support.

The sad part of this great system is that since it was launched in 2003, there does not seem to be a huge number of other schools following this broward schools virtual counselor system and the question one has to ask oneself is why.

I think the first problem with this online school management system is data security – as parents would be able to swap their codes and passwords with ease, one parent could end up comparing their child with another. It is equally probable that one of the smartest students – with a bit of time to spare – would devise a way of finding out all the personal details of his fellow students.

As a teacher, and as the assessment officer at the school – I also think that this amount of information given to a parent, without a teacher explaining the surrounding circumstances would prove to be a problem. In addition, unless every teacher in a school was issued with a net worked computer – still a distant dream in 2009 – 6 years after the launch – then the amount of time needed to add this information into the computer would be prohibitive.

However for an online school - with thousands of pupils - it could become a interesting option so that the parents can check their students work online from the office - making sure that the thousands of dollars being spent at an online school are being well spent.

I just think that most parents would love this online school management system - then never use it to check their pupils work. Those that did check would be those who ask for regular meetings with a school in the first place.

To test the Broward schools virtual counselor for yourself, please click on the link and then click on parent. This will then give you a demo run of the system.

Thank you reading about this online school management system. Please click here to return to our Online High School page

Click here to return to the Best Online Schools Home page