Technology & Learning - May 2008 - (Page 20)

E-Learning Gets Real W Call it virtual, distance, or online education. For today’s curricula, it’s no longer a question of whether or not to try but when to start Our survey of educators who already use these technologies can help the uninitiated. Pamela Livingston hen does an idea evolve from faddish to fundamental? These facts tell the tale: 42 states reported in 2007 some sort of virtual learning for their students; and there are at least 147 virtual charter schools operating in the U.S. Even the NEA recently wrote a thorough guide to virtual teaching. For motivated students led by online-savvy teachers, amazing learning outside of the brick-and-mortar school can take place and expand curricular possibilities. Somewhere right now a student is studying Mandarin online, another student recovering from an injury is working from his home, and a student who doesn’t learn math quickly is uploading her algebra problems. All the while a teacher is multitasking via IM, Skype, and Twitter and checking Moodle for responses to the latest class inquiry. Unconstrained by place and time, students are learning and teachers are teaching, virtually and rigorously. E-learning is filling other educational needs and scenarios. There are those students who have dropped out of traditional classes for emotional, physical, or academic reasons and are ready to learn from home. Other students simply can’t fit another thing into their schedules. Then there are those virtual students who feel too old for the class that they would be assigned to—students old enough for high school, for example, but whose grades and past performance placed them in middle school. Additionally, homeschoolers are seeing virtual learning as a component, while others are fulltime cyber students, attending asynchronously, and never go to classes in a traditional school. “The greatest advantage…to me [is] being able to help those students who, for whatever reason, cannot or have chosen not to attend a brickand-mortar school. For many of my students, they would have no other way to finish their education.” —Debbie Piper, adjunct businesstechnology teacher for a virtual public high school in Ohio,run by Connections Academy Other schools have found the possibilities for online learning to be rich and varied, allowing AP classes to happen, for instance. “We run one shared class of AP Calculus from one school to another. 20 | www.techlearning.com LUCAS RACASSE/PHOTOALTO http://www.techlearning.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Technology & Learning - May 2008

Technology & Learning - May 2008 Contents New@techlearning.com Editor’s Desk News and Trends E-Learning Gets Real Cover Story: Make Students Info Literate School CIO Product Guide Reviews Best of the Blogs What’s New LOY Profile Series

Technology & Learning - May 2008

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