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Los Angeles: How AVC Helps Armenians Stay Connected 04/01/2016
The collaboration between St. James Armenian Church School of Los-Angeles, USA, and the Armenian Virtual College started in 2014 when the former approached AVC for support in its academic program. AVC’s Hybrid Education Program, intended for schools wishing to incorporate innovative and attractive learning methods into their curricula, was a nice fit for the St. James Armenian Church Sunday School. Gail Chelebian, the Superintendent of the Sunday School, had learned about AVC from the Internet. She approached the College to help her create a blend of traditional and online education in organizing the Armenian Language teaching process. Soon after the Hybrid Education training was over, AVC’s Armenian Language online course was introduced to the students. With the guidance of onsite teacher Raquel Parseghian, the school students were offered the opportunity to learn the two branches of the Armenian language, Western and Eastern, with the help of an English-speaking Online Instructor. Learning Armenian with AVC turned out to be fun both for students and teachers. Natalie Chedotte, a student of the St. James School states: "AVC has been an awesome tool for us to learn our mother tongue!" It is the same for another student, Peter Chelebian: "I visit my student page even when we are not in class. It's really fun and cool." About a year later after the introduction of the AVC course into the St. James Armenian Sunday School curricula, the Armenian Language teacher Raquel Parseghian summed up the benefits of the blended education: “By presenting 20 minute lessons that I constructed, and 20 minute AVC online lessons, my students get the best of both worlds. It is a great tool and we are so fortunate that our Sunday School has made it possible for us to adopt and grow with AGBU AVC.” AVC’s Hybrid Education Program continues to include more and more schools in its network and keeps them connected to the growing AVC online community.