A child sits at home in front of his computer screen, working through a virtual-school lesson by mindlessly clicking through the multiple choices, never talking to a teacher or a fellow student or even glimpsing the great outdoors and interacting with the real world.

This static, impersonal, anti-social school experience is the image that many parents, teachers and school administrators continue to have in mind when they picture the world of online learning, even as more and more brick-and-mortar school districts explore full- or part-time virtual education.

But this image is a flawed one, experts say. Not only are most online-education programs highly interactive, with students engaging in virtual discussions with teachers and their peers as they work on inquiry-based projects and activities, but often the learning takes place within—or is supplemented by—a traditional classroom experience.

These days, virtual education can be more than a home-schooled child sitting alone in front of a computer. Purveyors of online-education products are creating various delivery methods to suit school districts, students, teachers, and parents with differing needs, requirements, and budgetary constraints, said Susan Patrick, president and chief executive of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL).

“Today every student can access a world-class education with online courses taught by talented, qualified teachers at any location,” she said.

And it’s not one-size-fits-all, said Ron Packard, chief executive of K12 Inc., an online-learning company founded in 1999. “But there’s a natural inertia and resistance to change in education, and we’re fighting that and trying to overcome the myths.”

These myths persist even as technology-based distance education has grown, with enrollment jumping 65 percent from 2002 to 2005 and more than 1 million K-12 students taking online courses during the 2007-08 school year, according to studies cited in a recent report by the U.S. Department of Education.

The same report also found that students who take all or part of their classes online may perform better than students taking the same course with only face-to-face instruction, and that the most effective approach might be a combination of face-to-face teaching and purely online instruction.

This “hybrid” or “blended” model is one of three alternatives that have emerged as popular and proven options for students, schools, and parents who aren’t interested in full-time virtual schooling. With the “supplemental” approach, districts can buy online courses a la carte to supplement and fill gaps in the traditional school curriculum. And the “classroom solutions” option allows schools to give students the benefit of online-course curriculum but present it, with the help of technology, in a traditional classroom setting.

“There are a lot of myths out there, but we’re making good progress by offering these different options,” Packard said. “It’s a good mix.”

The blended model

The name Chicago Virtual Charter School is a bit misleading. Though this Chicago Public Schools program initially was authorized to operate as a full-time online program with its founding in 2006, “there were some misgivings about that, so a face-to-face component was added,” said Bruce Law, current head of the school.

Now the school’s 560 students, in grades K through 11, spend 92 percent of their class time in a virtual setting and 8 percent in rented space at the Merit School of Music Building on South Peoria Street in Chicago’s West Loop.

“People typically think about two paradigms: the traditional brick-and-mortar school where students come in the morning and leave in the afternoon, and home-schooling. Our kind of virtual education lies between the two,” Law said. “People have a difficult time understanding that.”

Each student must report to the brick-and-mortar building one morning or afternoon each week, Tuesday through Friday, for traditional classroom instruction. “We use SMART Boards and have a wireless computer environment, but other than that it’s not any more high tech than any other brick-and-mortar school,” Law said. “The focus is on interaction between the children and the work they’re doing.”