When the Online School for Girls flickers to life this fall on computer screens across the country, students will take part in an unusual experiment that joins two trends: girls-only schooling and online teaching.
A consortium that includes the 108-year-old Holton-Arms School in Bethesda is driving the project, in the belief that girls can benefit from an Internet curriculum tailored just to them.
"There's been a lot of research done on how girls learn differently with technology than boys," said Brad Rathgeber, Holton-Arms's director of technology. "Part of this is a little bit of theory that we're trying to put in practice to see if it really does play out."
For now, the online collaboration will allow the four participating schools -- Holton-Arms, Harpeth Hall in Nashville, Westover School in Middlebury, Conn., and Laurel School in Shaker Heights, Ohio -- to offer classes that would not have generated enough student interest or teacher support in any one school. When the classes open to the public a year later, the educators hope that students around the world -- including homeschoolers and girls at coed schools -- will be able to take part in a version of the girls' school experience. And they want to prove that single-sex online education works. They can't find anyone who has done anything similar.
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