Education Week - October 31, 2012 - 9

EDUCATION WEEK

OCTOBER 31, 2012

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DIGITAL DIRECTIONS > Tracking news and ideas in educational technology
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E-School Conference Highlights Blended Ed.
By Ian Quillen
New Orleans

E-LEARNING IN THE STATES: SUPPLEMENTAL ACCESS
The 2012 “Keeping Pace” report determined, based on programs, policies, and funding, the level of availability of online learning options for high school, middle school, and elementary school students in each state. Here is a breakdown of how many states offer supplemental online opportunities.
High School (Grades 9-12)
All students Most students but not all Some students but not most No students

While the rise of blended learning has long been on the radar of leaders in virtual education, last week’s Virtual School Symposium may have been its unofficial coming-out party. From beginning to end, blended learning—briefly defined as any of a variety of approaches that combine features of both face-to-face and online instruction—took headline status in keynote speeches, panel discussions, and report releases throughout the three-day conference hosted here by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, or inacol. For example, the “Keeping Pace” report from the Evergreen Education Group, a document released every year at the symposium by the Durango, Colo.-based online learning research and consulting firm, for the first time included blended learning in its subtitle as a nod to the continual blurring occurring between fully online and blended programs. It also found that, while hard to quantify, blended learning programs are growing much more rapidly than fully online programs, and that many traditional providers of online learning are trying to explore ways to open blended learning schools, convinced there may be more room

still for growth in the latter sector. “If online learning is in puberty, then there’s just so many different flavors of blended learning that I see it a couple years [younger than online learning],” said Andy Frost, the vice president of product management for Plato Learning Inc., an online and blended learning provider based in Bloomington, Minn., during a discussion of the “Keeping Pace” findings. Perhaps sensitive to the emerging nature of blended learning, the Vienna, Va.-based inacol not only included more sessions and speeches about blended learning in the event program, but also gave those sessions top billing. The conference began with keynote remarks from Stacey Childress, who as deputy director of education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has helped oversee the awarding of grants for blended learning programs—part of the third wave of the foundation’s $30 million-to-date Next Generation Learning Challenges competitivegrant program. (Education Week receives support from the Gates Foundation for coverage of the education industry and K-12 innovation.) It ended with a conversation moderated by Michael B. Horn, the education executive director for the Innosight Institute, a think tank in San Mateo, Calif., who is widely regarded as a leader on the theories

of blended learning. The overwhelming focus on blended learning at the Oct. 21-24 symposium was so evident, said Mr. Horn, that he jokingly suggested changing the name of the event all together.

Measuring Outcomes
In a presentation on the Innosight Institute’s work categorizing models of blended learning, Mr. Horn suggested that the biggest benefit of blended learning models may be that they often don’t require substantial changes to the structure of schooling. For example, in a self-blend model—in which students select online courses to supplement classroom work—the ability to select an online course during an open class period requires little or no schedule reorganization for a high school student or a guidance counselor. Likewise, models in which students rotate from a face-to-face learning station to an online learning station—called a rotation model—are a very small step for many elementary educators. “Station rotation has been alive and well in those classrooms forever,” Mr. Horn said. “It’s just that one of the rotations was not online learning.” That easier transition is also reflected in a report released by inacol at the symposium that aims to give lawmakers and advocates guidance on how to create accurate measures of online learning programs’ performance. The report highlights six areas that educators and policymakers need to consider carefully when creating such measures for full-time virtual education, but it includes

Education Week’s special report Evaluating What Works in Blended Learning examines how a variety of models that mix face-to-face learning and online instruction are emerging and generating lessons learned for K-12 schools. Click on a digital edition of the report at www.edweek.org/go/blended-download.

only two of those—defining proficiency and creating measurements for individual student growth—in its recommendations for measuring the outcomes of online courses that are woven into a self-blend model. The expectation, said i nacol President Susan D. Patrick, is that the same thinking can also flow from metrics for fully online study to other blended learning models, and eventually into the brick-andmortar world. “We do expect this to broaden, and to add blended education and even traditional models of education,” Ms. Patrick said. “Because, if they are the right metrics for learning, they are the right metrics for all kinds of learning.” John Watson, the founder of the Evergreen Education Group, praised the work of inacol in trying to reshape the discussion around how to gauge which online and blended programs are successful. But he cautioned that just because full-time virtual education appears to be nearing a ceiling and blended learning appears to be exploding, it doesn’t mean all students have those opportunities. In particular, the 2012 edition of “Keeping Pace” found that a majority of states still don’t provide access to online courses as a supplement to traditional courses for a majority of their public school students, and that Florida stands alone as the only state to allow, in theory, access to online supplemental courses to all its public school students in grades K-5. “I worry sometimes that with all the media attention received by online and blended learning, that people are thinking, ‘This is ubiquitous, this is happening all over,’ ” Mr. Watson said.

No. 2 17 29 2

Middle School (Grades 6-8)
All Most Some None

2 2 22 24

Elementary School (Grades K-5)
All Most Some None

1 0 2 47
SOURCE: Evergreen Education Group

Scan this tag with your smartphone for a link to “Keeping Pace With K-12 Online & Blended Learning.” www.edweek.org/links.

Pa. Moves to Ease Penalties for Minors Who Engage in ‘Sexting’
By Kevin Amerman & John L. Micek
The Morning Call Allentown, Pa.

After a teenage girl in Pennsylvania was slapped with felony child-pornography charges for posting a video on Facebook that showed two other teens engaging in a consensual sex act, a judge this summer dismissed the charges, calling them “an overreaction by law enforcement.” Judge Robert L. Steinberg of Lehigh County said teens who text nude images of other teens should not face such charges and urged state lawmakers to create a more appropriate law. He got his wish. The state House and Senate approved a bill Oct. 17 designed to punish minors with less severe op>>

tions than under current law for “sexting,” or sending nude photos of themselves or other teens who are 12 or older, by cellphone or other electronic transmission. The new measure would make such acts a summary offense or a misdemeanor, depending on the circumstances, rather than the felony child-pornography charge currently filed in those cases. The bill awaits the signature of Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican. His approval is likely, administration spokeswoman Janet Kelley said. Though approaches vary from state to state, at least 19 states have enacted bills to address youth sexting since 2009, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures, based in Denver. Some states simply issue a warning for sexting, while other states require

community service or counseling programs for those involved, said Pam Greenberg, a senior fellow in the ncsl’s Legislative Information Services Program. “The balancing act is finding a way to deter kids from sexting and still not punishing them in the same way an adult would be punished,” Ms. Greenberg said.

Lifetime Impact
Under the new Pennsylvania measure, a minor who possesses or distributes a sexually explicit image of another minor who is 12 or older could be charged with a second degree misdemeanor for sending sexually explicit photos or videos. If the person in the photo or video is under 12, the teen could still be charged with a felony childpornography offense.

To get a charge under the legislation expunged, a minor could be ordered to take part in an educational program designed to deter teens from sexting. Sexting has been an issue throughout the country, although the prevalence of sexting among teenagers is unclear. A 2011 study from the University of New Hampshire in Durham found that roughly 1 percent of teens were engaged in sexting, compared with 7 percent in a 2011 Associated Press/mtv survey and 28 percent in a 2012 study from the University of Texas-Medical Branch at Galveston. In Pennsylvania, authorities in 2008 threatened to file childpornography charges against dozens of students at Parkland High School in Allentown after nude images of underage girls circulated on

cellphones. No one ended up being charged. “We recognize that this is an issue among teens, and we want to fight the issue, but not have it impact them for the rest of their lives,” said Shawn Wagner, the president of the Harrisburg-based Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association and a proponent of the bill. The bill would punish teens without subjecting them to lifelong consequences, such as having to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law, which makes information about registered sexual offenders available to the public through the Internet.
Editorial Intern Mike Bock contributed to this article. Copyright © 2012, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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Education Week - October 31, 2012

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