If you are choosing to take an online course as a NISS student, here are a few notes:
We highly recommend that all NISS students enroll in 8 classes at North Island Secondary. We have noticed that students have higher course completion rates in school than online. Sometimes there may be extenuating circumstances that lead to a student wanting or needing to complete an online course. In this case, it is the responsibility of the student and parent to look into the different options for online schools (see below).
Each school has its own sign up method. The contact information and how to enroll will be posted on each online school’s website. For example, North Island Distance Education (nides.ca) is an online school in Courtney and South Island Distance Education (sides.ca) is an online school in Victoria. Students taking an online course are expected to complete this outside of the regular NISS school schedule. For some students, who have more than enough school credits for graduation, they may have room in their NISS schedule for a support block in the Learning Commons for an online course.
The BC Ministry of Education Information:
Online & Distributed Learning
In this style of learning, students can connect with their teacher from anywhere in the world on their own schedule and their own terms. This approach is called distributed learning (DL).
Teachers use a wide variety of electronic tools to teach their students including voice and video conferencing over the Internet, email, telephone calls and others. Every DL school provides a teacher who works with each student to:
- Plan and deliver a course of study
- Get course textbooks and resources
- Assess student progress and complete a report card
Students can choose to complete an entire program via distributed learning or partner it with other learning options like in-person classes, blended classrooms or homeschooling.
Sign up for Classes
Both public and independent distributed learning schools offer classes. Students in Kindergarten to Grade 7 must take a full course load at one school, while students in Grades 8 to 12 may enroll in courses from a number of different distributed learning schools at one time.