What was that about homeschoolers not being able to meet deadlines?

[joannqn]

Our virtual academy teamed up with a public school in Boston to do a joint project with the 5th grade girls at both locations. I signed my daughter up to participate because it seemed like an interesting idea, and it has been a royal pain in the ______ ever since.

 

Here's the gist of the project. The girls were to exchange snail mail letters of introduction. Then skype with their assigned partners. They were going to both complete a travel brochure on their area to share via skype. Finally, they would work together via email/skype to complete and present a joint project.

 

Here's how it really worked: We mailed our snail mail letter right away and waited forever to get a response. (Forever = months) It took so long they they decided the Boston girls would share their travel brochure during the first skype meeting because it was a project they had already done, but the school's computers went down the day ours was scheduled. It took 3 weeks to reschedule and when we finally got to see my dd's partner their webcam wasn't working and we never saw their brochure. We also found out that my dd was working with two girls, not just the one we had received the letter for. During the second skype, my daughter was to show her brochure which she did. She also finally got to see the other girls brochure. They also had to work out details on their joint project which involved picking up trash, counting it, creating graphs, and writing about it. Since we are three months behind schedule, there wasn't much time to complete it. Deadlines were set pretty close together.

 

How it went? My daughter has had no contact with her partners. She gave them her email address so they could communicate. However, the other two girls don't have an email address they could use so they said they would try to ask their parents to use theirs. We haven't heard from them. How are they suppose to work on a joint project without any form of communication? Shouldn't they have worked this out before deciding to do this? Despite having to move everything we own downstairs to the upstairs bedrooms (DH refloored our main level) and pack to leave for 5 days, we still managed to get my daughter's portions of the assignment done on time. She was to pick up trash, count it, and upload the data to Google docs by last Monday. She did. She was to write a paragraph about the experience by last Monday. She did. After the graphs were completed, a job the Boston girls chose, she was to put the two paragraphs and graphs together and edit them into one cohesive paper by last Friday. Well, she can't...because the Boston girls haven't uploaded their data, haven't written their paragraphs, and haven't completed the graphs.

 

Yeah, I think I'll send my daughter to public school so she can learn to manage and keep deadlines.

[emubird]

This is what my daughter has experienced in her dual enrollment college courses as well. The non-homeschooled kids seem to have a knack for never getting anything done on time. Working with lab partners is incredibly frustrating.

 

It's almost as if the schools are teaching this skill.