ACCESS

ACCESS, or the Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators, and Students Statewide, is a distance learning tool provided by the state of Alabama. Their vision is "to provide equal access to high quality instruction to improve student achievement through distance learning. It offers online courses. The website offers announcements, important dates, a list of support centers, and resources. ACCESS also provides AP, or advanced placement courses, which are college board approved,remediation modules for the Alabama High School Graduation Exams.

Access offers many resources such as AVL (Alabama Virtual Library), ChemLab, Curriculum Pathways, Elluminate, Grapghmatica, HippoCampus, Mathtype, and NetTrekker. Some of these resources require special programs or passwords from ACCESS teachers. Others are free. AVL allows students to access books, articles, and other information from the web that are normally available at public libraries. Chemlab is a specialized download that provides simulation software for educational courses, such as chemistry. Curriculum Pathways is a free online resource for students and teachers. It has web-based resources for core classes grades 8-12. Elluminate is a live multi-media collaboration tool. Graphmatica is an equation plotter. Students and teachers can print, copy, and save graphs using this tool. Hippocampus offers high-quality multi-media content for general education courses to high school students. MathType is an interactive equation editor. This tool requires a password from the Access teacher. NetTrekker provides digital content which is organized by grade and reading level.

I think that ACCESS is a great resource for distance learners. It has many tools available to students and teachers who are involved in this program. Distance learning is a good option for many students. This is a very useful resource and it seems to be very up-to-date with new technology.