At high schools, more students logging on to learn

With a point and a click of her computer mouse, Hudson High School senior Roxanne Mutti hands in a poetry assignment to a teacher 3,000 miles away, then scrolls through messages from 19 classmates at schools that span four time zones.

Mutti is among a surging number of high school students inhabiting two educational worlds. While sitting at computers in four-walled classrooms in their hometowns, they attend ''virtual" classes connected by fiber optics and Web-based bulletin boards.

The Peak Group, an educational consulting firm, estimates that more than 1 million American high school students are currently taking Internet courses, up from 571,000 last year and 378,000 the year before.

''It's increased exponentially over the last few years," said John Flores, executive director of the Boston-based United States Distance Learning Association.

Hudson High School was an early leader in the virtual movement, starting classes in 1997. This semester, 80 students, mostly juniors and seniors, will take classes online, and four teachers will lead Internet classes.

In recent years, the trend has stretched throughout the suburbs. Ashland, Dover-Sherborn, Franklin, Holliston, Hopkinton, Maynard, Medway, Millis, Natick, Newton, and Shrewsbury all offer distance learning through the Virtual High School, a Maynard nonprofit company that coordinates 150 Internet-based courses. It involves teachers and students from 200 schools in 20 countries.

Schools pay $6,000 to join the collaborative program, plus $5,000 for teacher training. For each class a school offers to students in the program, 25 of their own students can take virtual courses.

The virtual classes have a maximum of 25 students, who receive regular high school credit if they complete the course.

The Internet courses, also referred to as distance learning or e-learning, expose students to a much broader range of courses than a single school could possibly offer. Among the more esoteric topics are ''Contemporary Irish Literature," ''The Golden Age of Classical Greece," ''Meteorology: A Study of Atmospheric Interactions," and ''DNA Technology."

Flores and school administrators attribute the increasing popularity of virtual learning in part to the growing demand for advanced placement courses, which smaller, poorer schools can't afford to offer, and to budget cuts that have forced schools to reduce their own offerings.

''In the emphasis on basics all across the country, classes for advanced students have been neglected," said Hudson Superintendent Sheldon Berman.

Mutti, whose teacher lives in Washington state, prizes the independence and flexibility. Online, she says, she can work at her own pace without someone constantly looking over her shoulder. Instead of listening passively to a lecture, she's in charge of what comes next. Yet when she has questions, her teacher gets back to her within the day.

Best of all, she finds it is easier posting a poem to the class site than reading it in person. For a writer, the anonymity can be liberating, she said.

''It's not as bad this way," she said. ''They [her fellow students] don't really know you, so you feel more comfortable."

The lack of face-to-face contact is one of the chief criticisms of virtual learning, but as Mutti has discovered, that can have its advantages. Advocates point out that students are judged on their work alone -- they're not subject to racial or gender bias or to subtle slights based on looks or personality.

''In online education, no child has acne, no child is overweight," said Liz Pape, chief executive officer for the Virtual High School.

Freed from the self-consciousness of sitting in a real-world classroom, shyer or slower students sometimes find their niches, teachers say.

''They open up more, I think because they are less worried what their peers will think," said Gordon Duckel, who teaches a virtual music appreciation class at Newton South High School. Duckel places music files and reviews of concerts and albums on the course Web page and asks students to describe their reactions to compositions.

Margie Potash, a Shrewsbury High School special education teacher, offers a virtual course on the Holocaust, which she calls the ''highlight of my teaching career." She agrees that students are ''much more willing to take risks online."

''They don't have to raise their hand, just chat."

In Hudson, virtual classes start with students logging on to a class home page that contains links to a syllabus, assignments, and bulletin boards. Students catch up on messages to the teacher and other students before tackling the day's assignment, which may be an individual or group research project, writing up reflections on readings, or answering questions and solving problems.

Although not conducted in real time, the classes are surprisingly interactive. Just days into the semester, class message boards are filled with student and teacher comments.

While the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the state's largest teachers' organization, said it has received no complaints about virtual classes, president Catherine Boudreau said computer classes should not compete with traditional teaching.

''We've always felt distance learning can be a valuable tool, but in our opinion it is never a substitute with face-to-face" education," she said.

Proponents of virtual education acknowledge the challege of bridging the digital divide to forge bonds with students.

''A totally isolated virtual experience is not in the best interest of the students," said Flores, the Distance Learning Association director. ''There still needs to be a human element."

Gabriel Cruz, Hudson's site coordinator, who serves as a go-between for the students and online teachers, said, ''It's hard for some students at first and it takes some time to adjust. They aren't used to the teacher not telling them to work."

For online teachers deprived of their customary position in front of the classroom, the trick is to encourage intellectual back-and-forth.

''In virtual classes, you move from being the 'sage on the stage' to being the 'guide on the side,' " said Mary McCarthy, the Hudson district's service-learning director, who teaches a virtual course on the topic, a combination of academic and volunteer work.

Virtual teachers said they've found that they actually have more time to spend with each student than in the traditional setting of teaching them all at once. And students say they receive more individual attention, because they aren't drowned out by their peers.

''I get just as much, if not more, contact," said Hudson senior Tony Casasanto, who is taking a biotechnology class as a semester elective. Casasanto said he relishes the chance to explore esoteric topics on his own, then bounce ideas off his teacher and classmates.

''It's what I hope college will be like," Casasanto said. ''Interesting courses and a lot of freedom."