Archive for the ‘Online learning’ Category

In every district, in every school, in every grade, there is that great teacher who all parents want for their children. So, parents cross their fingers that their child is among the lucky ones to end up on that teacher’s roster.

What if that terrific teacher could reach two, three or even five times as many students?

That is one of the promises of online learning, said Bryan Hassel, co-director of Public Impact and a speaker at today’s webcasted Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s panel on Education Reform for a Digital Era.

Hassel said that only about 25 percent of classes have one of these top-tier teachers at a given time. That means the other 75 percent don’t.

Education can enlarge the classroom of the teachers achieving the best results with their students and pay them more for doing so by multiplying their reach through technology, said Hassel.

Relieve those great teachers of non-instructional tasks and use video to reach more students and smart software to personalize …

Continue reading Should schools walk or run into the digital era? »

A teenage neighbor told me that he intended to be among the first in line for the new iPad that made its debut a few weeks ago. Since he already owned an iPad, I asked if the new model offered some innovation that he needed.

“I don’t know,” he told me, “but I know it’s better than what I’ve got.”

That seems to be the attitude of policymakers toward online learning, including some in the Georgia Legislature, which approved a new law pushing cyber high school courses:

Senate Bill 289 states: The State Board of Education shall establish rules and regulations to maximize the number of students, beginning with students entering ninth grade in the 2014-2015 school year, who complete prior to graduation at least one course containing online learning….A local school system shall not prohibit any student from taking a course through the Georgia Virtual School, regardless of whether the school in which the student is enrolled offers the same course.

Cybereducation is shiny and new. …

Continue reading Legislature endorses more cyber classes: They’re shiny and new but are they effective with k-12 students? »

Pelham City school chief Jim Arnold is one of my favorite guest posters because he doesn’t pull any punches. If you haven’t read his stuff before, I think you will enjoy his essay on this year’s damage tally to education from the Georgia Legislature.

This is a long piece, so I am pulling out the key passage here for those of you with only seconds to spare: I think this paragraph by Dr. Arnold says it all:

It’s becoming harder and harder for educators – especially teachers – to provide damage control from what amounts to friendly fire, and I believe that is part and parcel of what these initiatives are all about. Sooner or later, even legislators must see it’s not about race, it’s about poverty; it’s not about a test score, it’s about student achievement; it’s not about a standardized curriculum, it’s about good teaching; it’s not about the business model, it’s about personalization; it’s not about competition, it’s about cooperation. Until that time, we will continue …

Continue reading The Hunger Games for Georgia schools: Less money, more mandates and micromanagement from Legislature »

I have been researching online/distance/virtual learning because our General Assembly was attempting to mandate it as part of the high school graduation requirements.

Last week, the bill was changed so online high school courses are not mandated, but encouraged.

And that was a good thing, given what I have been finding in talking to researchers and reading the research about online education.

I fear that uninformed investments in expanded online learning will lead Georgia down the same dead end that technology spending did 20 years ago. As a state, we wasted millions of dollars on impractical and unworkable technology because we allowed the vendors to tell us what schools needed.

School systems had computers they couldn’t operate. Stuff sat in boxes. Nothing connected. Lacking staff expertise, systems trusted the vendors, forgetting that their first allegiance was to profit margins.

Now, Georgia is at risk of wasting millions  on online learning because the well-funded and …

Continue reading Online learning: Before we rush down that path, make sure we know where we are going »

I have never understood the focus on “career paths” in middle and high school as I don’t think a 14-year-old is ready to pick a career.

Often, when middle and high schools offer specific career training, they lag behind the industry because they can’t keep up with the rapid changes from afar. Nor can schools afford the new technology so they are sometimes teaching kids with yesterday’s standards, equipment and practices.

The ideal career path models place high schoolers in internships and apprenticeships in the actual industries where they see what current practices are and where the technology is up-to-date. That makes sense and is happening in some places in Georgia.

Speaking of up-to-date, I was talking to a Georgia Tech professor who suggested that computer coding become a standard course starting in elementary school. He said everyone will have to deal with coding in their jobs, so computer languages should be regarded as a basic skill set that every child should …

Continue reading Are we setting students on a path to careers that may not even exist in 20 years? »

As most Georgia students return to school today, I want to share a provocative essay about the way kids communicate today and what the future holds for them. (See earlier blog on how today’s classrooms should build on how kids prefer to communicate, including text messaging.)

Among the discussion points: Rather than assigning and judging college students on term papers, should we evaluate their writing skills on blogs and online forums where they often bring far more fervor and elegance?

The New York Times piece focuses on a new book by Cathy N. Davidson, co-director of the annual MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competitions.

In “Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn,” Davidson contends that 65 percent of today’s grade-school kids may end up doing work that hasn’t been invented yet. (Davidson  blog on these issues.)

The Times column explores a topic we have discussed here many times, whether …

Continue reading Are students returning to yesterday’s schools and ideas? Should blogs replace term papers? »

Gov. Nathan Deal reversed course today by returning to full-day pre-k. (AJC file)

The pre-k lobby is stronger than I thought. Gov. Nathan Deal just reversed his plan to cut the pre-kindergarten program from full-time to part-time, a decision that affected the 84,000 kids in the program and had some parents planning to resort to all-day child care instead.

The governor’s original plan also created despair among early childhood educators, who felt that quality pre-k was critical to Georgia’s aspirations to improve its education system.

“From day one we have worked tirelessly to make sure Georgia’s youngest scholars continue to benefit from the Pre-K program,” said Deal. “It is so important that we keep Georgia Pre-K a priority in order to ensure that students are school ready and on pace to read on grade level by third grade.”

Under Deal’s new plan:

• The school year will be shortened from 180 to 160 days.
• Class size will be increased to 22 students from 20. Since all …

Continue reading Pre-k stays full-day, but with fewer days. Fair compromise? »

Interesting Georgia Supreme Court ruling today that an online high school meets the definition of  “attending school.”

This case deals with child support, but I thought the legal finding on the virtual schooling was worth sharing. A lower court had ruled that the online school did not satisfy the child support provision that the child be attending school to continue receiving support from his father, but the high court disagreed.

Here is a summary of the ruling provided by the Georgia Supreme Court:

The Georgia Supreme Court has reversed a Chatham County court decision, finding that an 18-year-old’s participation in an on-line high school can satisfy the requirement that one must be “attending” school to continue to receive a parent’s child support.

“In light of the legislative and executive branches’ endorsement and regulation of on-line learning opportunities for Georgia students, we conclude that once a child enrolls in approved on-line courses in an effort to graduate from …

Continue reading Georgia Supreme Court: Online courses qualify as “attending school” »

As expected, the Georgia Charter Schools Commission approved the four charter schools recommended by its interviewing panels. It also raised the per pupil funding for online schools, a move that is likely to lure more virtual enterprises to Georgia.

I have read a lot about virtual education, but still think we are in the discovery phase of whether online learning is effective, especially for younger students. To me, the models depend in great part on the willingness of the parents to essentially co-teach.

In its 2009 meta-analysis of studies on online learning, the U.S. Department of Education noted that online learning was effective, but cautioned: An unexpected finding was the small number of rigorous published studies contrasting online and face-to-face learning conditions for K–12 students. In light of this small corpus, caution is required in generalizing to the K–12 population because the results are derived for the most part from studies in other settings (e.g., medical …

Continue reading More virtual schools likely for Georgia. Good news? »

Bill Gates spoke to the AFT on July 10th. Here is an excerpt of what he told the teachers:

Great teaching is the centerpiece of a strong education; everything else revolves around it. This is the main finding of our foundation’s work in education over the past ten years.

I have to admit – that is not where we started. Our work in schools began with a focus on making high schools smaller, in the hope of improving relationships to drive down dropout rates and increase student achievement.

Many of the schools we worked with made strong gains, but others were disappointing. The schools that made the biggest gains in achievement did more than make structural changes; they also improved teaching.

If great teaching is the most powerful point of leverage – how are we going to help more teachers become great?

In 2008 and 2009, our foundation partnered with Scholastic on a national survey to learn the views of 40,000 teachers on crucial questions facing your profession.

Teachers said in …

Continue reading Bill Gates to teachers: Most difficult act of leadership is not fighting the enemy; it’s telling your friends it’s time to change. »