Reprinted With Permission From Education Week
To appreciate how e-learning is changing
the landscape of education, you need only
look at the numbers. Already, 12 states
have established online high school
programs and five others are developing
them, 25 states allow for the creation of
so-called cyber charter schools, and 32
states have e-learning initiatives under
way, according to a new Education Week
survey of state technology coordinators
("E-Defining Education: A Survey of State
Technology Coordinators"). Meanwhile, the
survey shows, 10 states are piloting or
planning to administer online testing.
Oregon and South Dakota are already
using Web-based assessments.
All those programs and policy changes are
opening the doors of online education to
tens of thousands more students. In fact,
"Virtual Schools: Trends and Issues," a
report commissioned by WestEd—a
research, development, and educational
services organization—estimates that
40,000 to 50,000 K-12 students will have enrolled in an online
course by the end of the 2001-02 school year. As it is, most of
those youngsters are high school students. But the report points
out that momentum is building to make online courses available to
elementary and middle school pupils, too.
"The virtual school movement," the
WestEd report says, is "the 'next wave'
in technology-based K-12 education."
Indeed, the e-learning bandwagon
figures to become a crowded vehicle
before long. After all, this new way of
delivering education has the support of
numerous state and local policymakers,
education researchers, and business
leaders.
Still, some educators, policymakers, and
researchers are skeptical of what they see as
exaggerated claims for online learning. And
they worry about what is lost when students
do not meet face to face with their
classmates and teachers.
Alan Warhaftig, a Los Angeles high school
English teacher who has earned certification from the National
Board for Professional Teaching Standards, says he sees an
"overall weakness to that notion that online schools can replace
the school environment."
Others have similar concerns.
For instance, "Guide to Online High
School Courses," a draft report from a
group of companies and education
organizations, including the National
Education Association and the National
School Boards Association, expresses
particular unease with the possibility
that online education will filter down to
the lower grades.
"Our current understandings of the characteristics and needs of
learners in earlier grades ... would suggest we exercise great
caution in the use of the online environment to deliver instruction
to students prior to middle school," the draft report says.
Beyond such concerns, the report includes a daunting list of
other issues that must be resolved: Are online courses aligned
with state academic standards? Who is responsible for students'
technological needs when they are taking an online course? Are
online teachers trained effectively to teach via the Internet?
Should parent approval be required before a child enrolls in an
online course? Will students receive the same amount of credit
for an online course as they would for a face-to- face class? And
how will states ensure the quality of online courses, especially
when students are taking them from teachers in other states or
countries?
The questions go on and on. But because the phenomenon is
largely a new one, education policymakers are still struggling to
find appropriate answers.
To help educators better understand the benefits and drawbacks
of e-learning, Technology Counts 2002—the fifth edition of
Education Week's annual 50-state report on educational
technology—examines the trend from many different
perspectives, beginning with a story that explores one regular
high school's increasing use of online classes ("E-Learning Goes to
School"). The school, Hudson High in Hudson, Mass., receives its
online courses through the Virtual High School, a collaboration of
high schools run by a Massachusetts company with 200 member
schools in 28 states and eight countries. Hudson was the first
high school to take part in the program.
As another part of this year's focus on e-learning, the Education
Week research team was able to gain an insider's view of online
learning, particularly through the eyes of students. With the
permission of the Florida Virtual School, or FLVS—the largest and
most established state-financed online high school in the
nation—the research team analyzed the latest and previously
unpublished course-evaluation data collected by the online school
this school year ("Students Speak Out"). The data—and students'
accompanying comments—come from 2,387 evaluation surveys
filled out by students between September and February of this
school year.
Traditional colleges and full-fledged online universities have been
educating students via the Web far longer than K-12 schools
have—hence, they have much to share with K-12 educators
about their successes and failures along the way. So Technology
Counts 2002 also sought advice from higher education officials
who have experienced the trials of building and maintaining
online-learning programs ("Higher Ed.'s Online Odyssey"). One
higher education official, for instance, advises precollegiate
educators to "look at what you can accomplish with the least
amount of technology."
Undoubtedly, e-learning arrangements have unlimited potential to
transform the professional lives—and in some ways, the personal
lives—of teachers. A teacher working for a virtual school is not
required to be in a specific classroom, at a specific time. And that
changes the possibilities not only for where they teach, but also
how they teach. To better understand online teaching from the
front lines, this year's report details the experiences of four
teachers, all of whom teach online full time, but had taught in
regular schools before becoming cyber educators ("The Virtual
Teaching Life"). The upshot: This type of teaching isn't for
everyone.
As it is, many online teachers are still struggling to find
high-quality online content, according to a story in this year's
report about online curriculum. Experts say the problem is that
most online curricula are simply traditional material copied to the
Web. As a consequence, such curricula typically don't take
advantage of the interactive or visual features the Web offers.
Online professional development for teachers is a different story.
Some technology experts have raised concerns about teacher
training conducted online, pointing to inadequate access to
technology and a lack of face-to-face interaction. But the
inherent flexibility the online medium provides to busy educators
has made it increasingly popular. This report takes a look at some
of the efforts to train teachers through online programs
("E-Training Offers Options").
This year, Technology Counts also turns the spotlight on a state
that is pushing the uses of educational technology as far as it
can ("One State's Digital Quest"). A rural state known to
outsiders mostly as the site of Mount Rushmore, South Dakota is
one of the most wired states in the nation. And people far
beyond the South Dakota state line are starting to notice. For
the past two years, the Folsom, Calif.-based Center for Digital
Government, a research and technology advisory institute, ranked
the state first in a nationwide evaluation of how states use
technology to benefit their citizens.
For the United States overall, the picture is a little different. On
the positive side, states have made great strides—despite fiscal
belt-tightening—in helping students get access to computers in
schools. The national student-to-computer ratio is now about
4-to-1. Still, spending on staff development and training
decreased as a percentage of school technology budgets from
2000 to 2001. This report examines some of those trends.
Snapshots of the steps each state has taken to establish
e-learning initiatives—or simply to use educational technology
more effectively—are also included in the report ("State Profiles"),
as are data tables with state-by-state statistics on technology
use in schools ("Tracking Tech Trends").
We hope you'll find information here that will help you see through
the hype swirling around e-learning, and better understand the
pluses and downsides of this new way of providing education.
— Education Week
Distance Learning
