Week one at virtual school

Zach has finished his first full week at virtual school and, although I haven't asked him, I am sure that he likes it (as well as he's going to like any school).  Work volume is up, perhaps in part because he is up a grade, but nothing that he won't grow into managing.  A few observations:

Favourable:

• real-time commitments for conference and handing work in
• lots of written work
• quick grading with feedback
• relinquishing curriculum and lesson planning
• seeing my son rise to the challenge
• having at a school that emphasizes his strengths

Some less favourable:

• weak welcome (i.e., nothing beyond a sentence saying welcome, not introduced to class) with unfulfilled commitments (e.g., no tour, no meeting with teacher)
• based on the dead links, I think this week's lessons must have been recycled, which is fine, but this was done without a look over for errors (a few punctuation errors) and relevancy (a few dead links)
• no introduction to a unit.  This week the class was working on a book called Streams in the river by O'Dell, which I thought must be part of a Lewis and Clark integrated study unit, which I saw listed on the school website, but after two weeks, the class is on to Holes by Sanchar, which doesn't appear to be related, so I don't know if the unit is finished or whether we're in another unit that I haven't figured out yet.  There doesn't appear to be any place to determine this.
• insufficient instructions as to how to complete lessons in a unit and was not able to get clarification from the teacher who didn't seem to understand our questions
• insufficient contextual sources for lessons.  Being the only Canadian in the class, I'm sure he was weaker than any other student in this regard, but still found it presumptive that there was no context provided for these lessons on Streams. 
• insufficient conceptual sources for lessons.  Perhaps there is a handbook I am missing on learning techniques for the virtual student, but the lessons themselves did not seem to provide conceptual support.  I am not sure that my son recognizes when a word has a particular academic meaning that requires closer attention.  For example, there was a question asking why a particular phrase was ironic, but nothing that flagged this word as a literary term (that he'll be hearing about for the next 6 years).  At the minimum, I would like to see a sentence with a link that says "for more about literary irony, please see ..."
• insufficient development of significance.  There didn't seem to be any wrap-up to a lesson that urged the student on to a new place of realization.  There were questions that started the journey, but there didn't seem to be an opportunity to distill what had been learned through writing, visuals, or discussion. 
• all these insufficiencies left an absence of the teacher's voice.  The lessons seemed fragmented.  There wasn't a sense of being guided through (e.g., "We're going to be looking at ...." "please answer the following questions")
• based on this week's experience, I will need to preview each lesson for accuracy and relevance, figure out what is expected, source out contextual and conceptual links, and distill the unit if I want my son to continue developing solid academic and critical thinking skills.