Background

Changes over the past ten years have broadened the options for students enrolling in courses for the New South Wales Higher School Certificate. Students are no longer confined to a mostly academic pathway or limited to courses that can be taught at their schools. It is now possible to study using several different modes of delivery, attending different campuses and institutions, pursuing various pathways over a number of years.

Online, flexible delivery courses have been made available to students in systemic, congregational and independent Catholic schools to cater for specific student needs. 

Online courses are not intended to replace existing face-to-face classes. What schools are endeavouring to do is to maintain a Catholic education for these students and to provide them with access to subjects that traditionally have created timetable difficulties due to their very small class size. 

The Online Education Centre commenced operation in 2003 in the Diocese of Lismore. With the assistance of the Maitland-Newcastle, Broken Bay and Wagga Wagga Dioceses, it has grown significantly to deliver an increasing number of online courses to senior high school students in Catholic schools across New South Wales. 

The subjects delivered are ones which schools traditionally have difficulty running due to small candidature, lack of expertise at the local school level or timetable clashes.

What is Distance Education?

Online learning is an evolving form of distance education that is experiencing tremendous growth as a result of increased use of personal computers, growth in internet access and lower technology costs.

It is essentially a form of teaching and learning that uses computer based internet technologies where students, regardless of location, have access to staff and services. The technology provides a gateway for instruction, communication and the provision of links to other educational resources to enhance the learning experience.

How does it operate?

Catholic students across NSW may enrol in the Online Education Centre to study a single subject. They attend their home school for all other subjects. Through an internet presence and various technologies, the provision of an online teacher, a school based mentor and both online and supplementary materials, we are able to provide a means of delivering course content to students regardless of their location.

Students will have time each week with the teacher and fellow students connected via the internet in lecture and tutorial sessions out of school hours. Students follow up these lessons by completing set work in their own time either at school or at home.

Ongoing feedback is given by the teacher who is available to provide assistance on a daily basis. Students are required to attend a workshop with the teacher and fellow students once each term at a regional centre close to their home school.

What is involved?
It is a reasonable expectation that students spend between six to eight hours each week working on an online course. This includes both class time and time spent at school in study periods as well as essential homework time.