Panel: Remove barriers to digital learning
Nonpartisan commission releases '10 Elements of High-Quality Digital Learning,' calls for an end to seat-time requirements
by Jenna Zwang, Assistant Editor
Read more by Jenna Zwang
The Digital Learning Council's blueprint aims to personalize learning.
Digital and blended learning opportunities have the potential to improve U.S. education dramatically, because they can help teachers provide a more personal learning experience for their students, according to the Digital Learning Council (DLC), a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group led by former governors Bob Wise of West Virginia, a Democrat, and Jeb Bush of Florida, a Republican. But for this to happen, policy makers must remove barriers to digital learning such as archaic school funding formulas and seat-time requirements, the council argues.
The DLC on Dec. 1 introduced its “Ten Elements of High-Quality Digital Learning,” a blueprint for how digital learning can transform education. On Dec. 2, the Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed), of which Wise is president, held a webinar to discuss the DLC’s blueprint.
“Students today are living in a digital age, and they are learning digitally everywhere except for school,” said Wise. “If you are eligible for public school, you should be eligible for publicly-funded digital learning.”
Panelists addressed three looming challenges facing the education system: declining fiscal revenues, a mounting teacher shortage, and increased demand for skilled workers. While the demand for highly skilled workers is increasing, the webinar noted, only seven out of 10 students graduate from high school, and only half of those graduates are college and work ready. Panelists said they believe digital and blended learning can help the U.S. overcome these issues.
“When [students] sit in a classroom lined up in desks with a single textbook, a single lecture, and a single teacher trying to convey information to them, it shuts them down,” said Susan Patrick, president and CEO of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning and an executive DLC committee member.
“Every student deserves a world-class education, and we can provide that through digital learning,” said Patrick.
Patrick and fellow panelist Lisa Gillis, project director of the DLC and author of Virtual Schooling, believe schooling can be greatly improved through the use of blended learning that provides more personalized instruction. Blended learning combines live teaching and a variety of technological tools, including online learning, to educate students.
weeklywriter
December 6, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Digital learning will transform education—in fact, it already has, despite the current regulatory bottlenecks. We have started integrating Language Arts with Web 2.0 technology in a club program that gives elementary students a reason to write. With parent and teacher supervision, students are embracing digital education at http://www.weeklywriter.org. The technology is freely available for public, private, and home schools. Until we are willing to step up and help children navigate towards safe, supervised productive online learning, they will continue experiment on their own.
weeklywriter
December 6, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Digital learning will transform education—in fact, it already has, despite the current regulatory bottlenecks. We have started integrating Language Arts with Web 2.0 technology in a club program that gives elementary students a reason to write. With parent and teacher supervision, students are embracing digital education at http://www.weeklywriter.org. The technology is freely available for public, private, and home schools. Until we are willing to step up and help children navigate towards safe, supervised productive online learning, they will continue experiment on their own.
indysgirl@nptdock.com
December 6, 2010 at 1:42 pm
“When [students] sit in a classroom lined up in desks with a single textbook, a single lecture, and a single teacher trying to convey information to them, it shuts them down…”
That’s right–it does. But guess what? Taking a class online is not the only other option from the picture painted above. That is not the way the optimal classroom should look. This is a red herring, and I’m fairly sure it’s about money (what else is new…). This argument espoused in this article is about replacing teachers (the human factor) and using the money to pay companies for hokey software with bells and whistles to entertain kids in order to present content material and for lots more tests so we can be SURE they do not move on without “gaining the skills they will need at the next level.” Certain aspects of online learning may have the potential to be more personalized, but they will always be way less personal.
Just for the record, I have a graduate degree in Computer Science so I have nothing against technology. Students need more access to technology used creatively INSIDE the classroom.
I have also taken several classes online as I study to become certified to teach (math). “21st Century skills” is a term thrown around ad nauseum these days, but frequently people who use it imply only that students should know how to use technology and things like how to behave online. In reality, one of the most important of the 21st C. skills is about learning how to collaborate. It can be done online, but it is a whole lot harder. In my experience (which is something I wager few of the people pushing the online model have), I have often found online learning to be extremely isolating. Things you might have brought up in a real classroom situation you hesitate to do so online because it is so much harder to be sure your meaning is not misconstrued, for example, so you just don’t “say” them.
In addition, most students are dismal at verbal skills–the online model is only going to exacerbate this problem.
indysgirl@nptdock.com
December 6, 2010 at 1:42 pm
“When [students] sit in a classroom lined up in desks with a single textbook, a single lecture, and a single teacher trying to convey information to them, it shuts them down…”
That’s right–it does. But guess what? Taking a class online is not the only other option from the picture painted above. That is not the way the optimal classroom should look. This is a red herring, and I’m fairly sure it’s about money (what else is new…). This argument espoused in this article is about replacing teachers (the human factor) and using the money to pay companies for hokey software with bells and whistles to entertain kids in order to present content material and for lots more tests so we can be SURE they do not move on without “gaining the skills they will need at the next level.” Certain aspects of online learning may have the potential to be more personalized, but they will always be way less personal.
Just for the record, I have a graduate degree in Computer Science so I have nothing against technology. Students need more access to technology used creatively INSIDE the classroom.
I have also taken several classes online as I study to become certified to teach (math). “21st Century skills” is a term thrown around ad nauseum these days, but frequently people who use it imply only that students should know how to use technology and things like how to behave online. In reality, one of the most important of the 21st C. skills is about learning how to collaborate. It can be done online, but it is a whole lot harder. In my experience (which is something I wager few of the people pushing the online model have), I have often found online learning to be extremely isolating. Things you might have brought up in a real classroom situation you hesitate to do so online because it is so much harder to be sure your meaning is not misconstrued, for example, so you just don’t “say” them.
In addition, most students are dismal at verbal skills–the online model is only going to exacerbate this problem.
colin schumacher
December 13, 2010 at 12:37 pm
I really appreciate what ‘indysgirl’ has to say on this. I teach PD in screen literacy and screen production for K-12 teachers in Australia, Singapore, Thailand and other countries in Asia, and currently researching advanced screen literacy for my doctorate.Just as there are inferior and superior textbooks available on exactly the same subject, online learning will produce the same schism. With purchasing authorities – including teachers ill-equipped to know the difference. Having an advanced knowledge of successful screen literacy should be in high demand now. Sadly the focus is on emergent technologies and not on the elearning content. More here: http://www.ColinSchumacher.com
colin schumacher
December 13, 2010 at 12:37 pm
I really appreciate what ‘indysgirl’ has to say on this. I teach PD in screen literacy and screen production for K-12 teachers in Australia, Singapore, Thailand and other countries in Asia, and currently researching advanced screen literacy for my doctorate.Just as there are inferior and superior textbooks available on exactly the same subject, online learning will produce the same schism. With purchasing authorities – including teachers ill-equipped to know the difference. Having an advanced knowledge of successful screen literacy should be in high demand now. Sadly the focus is on emergent technologies and not on the elearning content. More here: http://www.ColinSchumacher.com