Virtual school
A virtual school or cyberschool refers to an institution that is not "brick and mortar bound". All student services are conducted through Internet technology. The virtual school differ/contrasts from the traditional school through the physical media that links administrators, teachers and students and is an alliance of public distance learning schools. Many states in the United States have their own virtual school, and many of them have students numbering in the thousands. By providing a student's social security number the person is then entered into a database where they can chose which classes they want to take.
There are many different virtual school instructional and enrollment models. Instructional models range from fully independent self paced courses to semester based, teacher facilitated courses. Class sizes range widely with anywhere from 25 students to as many as 200 students in each class section. Students keep in contact with teachers and collaborate with other students through web communication tools provided in the course delivery platforms like Blackboard or Moodle. In some cases students communicate by phone with instructors. To help with communication many virtual schools have implemented their own system programs to help build courses and maintain student profiles. There are also many books and training manuals to aid in the development of such schools and courses.
