As a virtual school, our student body is very spread out.  If you live far away from the Grapevine-Colleyville area, you might feel a bit left out sometimes.  Luckily, our student body can be much more than just meeting in person. My main way of interacting with other students is through Google Hangouts.  Not only is there a chat for everyone, there is also smaller chats for people of your grade!  I often private chat with people in classes such as pride where your attention can be split while still retaining all the information.  To private chat with a student, you can either hover over their name in the attendee pod or go to the options in the chat pod and select start chat.  While meeting virtually is super cool, meeting in person is also very important. In the words of Mr. Bowman (teacher at iUPrep), “In my opinion F2F (Face to Face) opportunities are important for virtual students, because they provide students and teachers with the opportunity to get to know each other in ways that can’t completely take place virtually.  We often call them ‘tutorials’, but for me the most important aspect is for students to get the opportunity to make a connection with other students and/or teachers.”  You don’t even have to drive far to go to F2F opportunities, there will most likely be a Starbucks day near you!  Starbucks days are when one or more teachers go to a Starbucks and spend a few hours there.  Even if it is not your teacher specifically, it can be really helpful to go.  And don’t forget the iUPrep Instagram and Facebook pages!  I have been working on a project that will have every link and all the information you ever could possibly need from iUPrep and that should be happening fairly soon!  Keep a look out!

iUPrep Google Hangouts chat: https://hangouts.google.com/group/PwBH2ZozBg5eheZ23 

iUPrep Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/iuniversityprep/ 

iUPrep Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/iUniversityPrep/