Alabama ACCESS Program

The ACCESS (Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators, and Students Statewide) program is a program now available in Alabama which was created to help connect teachers and students through the use of technology. According to the ACCESS website, the mission of this program is "to provide an infrastructure that delivers quality learning opportunities for all citizens." The goal of the program is "to provide additional educational offerings for all Alabama public high school students." Although this is the ultimate goal of the program there are many small objectives the ACCESS program hopes to achieve. Some of these objectives include providing equal access to courses required for advanced diplomas, providing equal access to advanced placement and dual enrollment courses, providing teachers with up to date technology which will help enhance their lessons, etc. In order to meet these goals, ACCESS has created many strategies in order to provide the needed technology in all of the Alabama public high schools. A couple of the strategies of this program include providing additional computers to the high schools which will provide the needed technology for Internet based courses and increasing the connectivity between the central offices and the schools.

Some components of the ACCESS program include Internet based courses, interactive video courses, and blended courses which will include both videoconferencing and Internet based instruction. The Internet based courses that ACCESS provides are courses that are delivered completely online and are taken during the regular school day. The interactive video courses are courses that use audio/visual links to link the students and the teacher. Both of these components of access have their benefits and challenges. A couple of the benefits of videoconferencing and Internet based instruction include providing more learning responsibility for the students and providing more opportunity for students to take courses not available to them at their own school. Challenges that come with videoconferencing and Internet based instruction include technology problems and schedule coordination.