Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Mar 11/02) - With solitaire on one student's computer, it looks more like goofing off rather than learning.

It turns out though, the Internet just went down.

Online learning is working out well for a handful of students and their principal, at Chief Sunrise Education Centre on the Hay River Reserve.

Rosemary Buggins always earned OK grades from classroom teaching, but felt she could do better.

"I just wanted to be by myself without any noise around me. I couldn't think right," says the 16-year-old Grade 11 student.

Principal Brent Kaulback is happy too.

"We're a small school. The Internet provides us with flexibility to offer all the courses students need for graduation," he says.

Buggins wants to be a computer technician. When she found out about the online learning option, part of the attraction was simply that it was something new to try.

Buggins has taken English courses over the Internet. She just signed up for a graphic design course, and still attends some regular courses offered in the classroom.

Aside from a quieter setting, Buggins sees other advantages to online learning. She can work from her home computer at night, and she likes the vast network of help available, from other students. "We exchange e-mails," she says.

Since she goes to school like a regular student, teachers are also available any time if she gets stuck on something.

With high teacher turnover throughout the North, school principals don't have to worry as much about finding, say, a physics teacher if only one student wants the course.

Online courses are also much less expensive than teachers. The Alberta-based Chinook College courses used at Chief Sunrise Education Centre cost $125 per credit. They're good courses too, Kaulback and Buggins both say. NWT follows Alberta's education curriculum.

On the technical side, NWT schools are hooked up to the government's high-speed Internet network, meaning download times are not an issue.