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Exploring the Virtual School Landscape: Innovations in Education

This exchange series delves into the world of virtual schools, focusing on their history, progress, and policy issues. Discover the evolution from correspondence courses to online platforms, with insights on key programs like The Virtual High School. Uncover the challenges, successes, and future directions in online education, including student evaluations, teacher training, and instructional models. Dive into research directions, policy concerns, and future trends, such as open-source courseware and learning standards. Gain valuable perspectives on the diverse landscape of virtual schools and how they shape the future of education.

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Exploring the Virtual School Landscape: Innovations in Education

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  1. OII Exchange SeriesInnovations in EducationVirtual Schools Raymond Rose ray@concord.org Concord Consortium

  2. My Agenda • Overview of virtual schools • Quick look at The Virtual High School – the Coop model • Future progress andpolicy issues

  3. Quick History • Correspondence Courses (snail mail) • 21-inch Classroom • ITV courses • Technology enhanced Correspondence courses (email) • Lectures / books on line (web pages) • Online courses delivered on the Internet • Course Management Systems

  4. VHS and Florida Virtual School been in existence since 1997 • Currently enroll over 15K students • During the 2000/01 school year, nearly 50,000 students in 48 states enrolled in Apex Learning online curriculum.

  5. The 40 virtual school programs profiled [in the 2002 PEAK Report] reported a total of 85,500 students in (2002)…. Projections for a broader spectrum of virtual school programs…estimate the total number of students at the 88 identified K-12 virtual schools to be 275,000 in 2001-2002. PEAK report Virtual Schools Across America: Trends in K-12 Online Education 2002

  6. Goal and Audience for Virtual Schools Home-based Students Provide a high school diploma Support F2F Courses School-based Students

  7. Virtual School Providers

  8. The Virtual High School • 1996 Technology Innovation Challenge Grant to Hudson, MA, Public Schools and Concord Consortium • Coop model • Participating schools offer courses • Self-sufficient, membership-funded for the past 2 years • www.goVHS.org

  9. Students Succeed Online if… • Self-motivated • Interested in the course content • Don’t have technology problems • Including access problems • Access not limited by assumptions made in design.

  10. Evaluations Exist • Illinois Virtual High School (01-02) • Florida Virtual School (www.flvs.net) Comprehensive Evaluation 1999-2000 • Virtual High School (www.goVHS.org) • The Virtual High School Teaching Generation V • Teachers College Press

  11. My Frustrations • Assumption that all F2F is inherently better than any online education. • New programs that don’t research or build on the learnings of existing virtual schools. • Retention • Teacher training • Instructional models • We’re too wedded to the traditional school, course, class model.

  12. Issues to Watch • Access issues • Universal design • Requiring students to own computers and Internet access • Data collection • Disaggregated student performance data

  13. Research Directions • What can we learn about online interaction patterns to improve communications? • What’s the most effective F2F model? • What’s an effective online synchrous learning model? • What do we know about basic learning?

  14. Policy Concerns • Funding requirements • Teacher Certification • Who “Owns” the Students (ADA) • Seat-time as a measure of learning • Restrictions on progress and development of new, potentially more effective learning due to policy reinforcement of School, Building, Course, and Classroom model

  15. Future Directions • Open Source Courseware • Learning Objects • Standards for use of content • The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)

  16. Remember: • Not all virtual schools are the same, don’t paint them with the same brush. • Virtual schools aren’t automatically second best to the brick and mortar alternative. • Contact info: • ray@concord.org

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