Here is a guest response from Star Kraschinsky, director of communications for Florida Virtual School.

Florida Virtual School (FLVS) opened its virtual doors in August 1997 as the country’s first Internet-based public high school with seven teachers and 77 students. Today, the statewide, public virtual school serves more than 148,000 public, private, charter and home-schooled students in Kindergarten through 12th grade and provides e-solutions to all 67 Florida school districts, the remaining 49 states and to 57 countries.

Through FLVS and online learning solutions, curriculum and scheduling choices are no longer limited to local school offerings or a student’s zip code. Access is offered 24/7/365 from any place with Internet connection. Fast forward 10, maybe even just five years, and this paradigm shift on how to best serve students – where they are and not where we want them to be – will be almost complete.

The fundamental belief of FLVS that every student is unique and learns at a different pace is as true today as it was 15 years ago. It’s all about personalized learning and instruction.

In the future, when funding completely follows a child, he/she will be able to be zoned to one “home” school, but take courses from various schools. Students and their parents will have educational choices; they will be able to map out their own personalized learning journey.

With funding following the student, the bottom line will not be at the center of all decisions made; the student will be at the center – as he/she should be.

Student advancement will no longer be based on “seat time” in a classroom, but by demonstrated competency and mastery of a subject. This shift allows a student to accelerate his/her learning or, if needed, take more time to master the concept.

Highly qualified and certified instructors in the subject matters they teach will work one-on-one to further personalize each student’s learning experience, wherever he/she may be in the world.

We know this shift in education is possible, as FLVS has embraced this model since its inception 15 years ago. Personalized learning instruction led by caring, highly qualified teachers is the future of online educational success.

More than 1 million students have successfully completed courses through FLVS. The exponential growth FLVS and online learning have experienced will continue as we transform education worldwide – one student at a time.

It strikes me as odd that education is still the only sector debating the merits of using technology to improve its mission. And the challenges described in the questions above – such as parents and educators having to take the time to sort out helpful ideas from useless ones – apply to traditional approaches and resources in education as much as they do to technology-enabled approaches. The “naysayers on e-learning” seem remarkably silent with traditional approaches that fail kids year in and year out.

In the end, these technologies are just tools and resources and just like any tool or resource, their value comes from how they are used. Use the wrong tool for a problem and you won’t get the results you want. That doesn’t mean the tool is bad – it simply means it was misused.

The lesson here is the importance of aligning the right technologies to the right educational goal one. It is also important to not just automate old approaches but redesign processes and structures around what technology allows. Amazon didn’t set out to just make a more efficient store, it designed an entirely new way of shopping. In much the same way, today’s best models of next generation learning have rethought school and classroom models around the flexibility and opportunity offered by new technologies.

The new digital learning platforms being introduced today allow for a personalized education experience in ways never before possible. These systems “learn the learner” in the sense of continuously assessing a student’s academic strengths and weaknesses, as well as the type of learning that best engages them. Some students may do well with a short video lecture but other students might need an interactive simulation to understand the concept. The way a concept is presented may not be the right choice for everyone, but if it is right for you, then the system can offer it up. That is the next wave of innovation where powerful data systems use analytics and predictive modeling to analyze and visualize student information to provide actionable insight and recommendations.

At the end of the day, this will not be an either/or conversation. Most students will have an education experience that mixes – or “blends” – the best of traditional learning with technology. We just need a system that provides them with the flexible models and options that meet their needs.

Here is a response from: Susan Patrick, the President & CEO of iNACOL (International Association for K-12 Online Learning)

Tom Vander Ark makes several strong points in his post, so I hope that I might just add a few additional thoughts.

Online learning is not simply a videotaped lecture, an online chat, a Skype-like conversation, an e-book, or a series of multiple choice quizzes popping up on a computer screen.

Online learning starts with students having access to excellent teachers – most online teachers have at least eight years of classroom experience. These seasoned educators are professionals empowered with the digital tools and engaging content we are able to access on-demand in our daily lives. They harness their power and efficiency to individualize instruction and engage students in a learning process that can transform the way they learn in the modern world.

Online learning is not about technology for its own sake, but instead revered by online teachers and students for the very personal interaction it enables between them. Though continuously opined (incorrectly) as otherwise on the pages of many papers, online teachers will be the first to tell anyone who will listen that their ability to get to know their students in an online setting far surpasses the relationships they were able to build in a traditional classroom.

And consider for a moment that if education is the civil rights battle of this generation, than online learning can push the realization. How else could every student, regardless of zip code, receive equitable access to the very best instruction available for every subject needed to prepare them for college, careers and lifelong learning. Every student could access every AP course taught by the best educators anywhere. Forty percent of high schools in California alone do not offer the full “A-G” high school, college-prep course requirements for admission to the state university system. We could fix this with online learning immediately – giving every student access to the instructors and courses they need to graduate college ready.

To cloister our students away from an educational opportunity that could mean the difference between struggle and success would be an irresponsible declaration that while innovation and technology have radically benefited almost every aspect of our lives, our classrooms and schools as currently designed and utilized are just fine, thank you very much. I continue to receive notes, emails, and encouragement from young people who took online classes that would not have had the same academic and life opportunities without them. They encourage me to keep helping people understand that online learning can change a child’s life and expand their academic experiences.

I'd ask you to review the latest round of PISA results or even a list of schools in need of improvement in your state to decide whether or not we are reaching as many students as possible and cementing their (and our) future success. And, then think about how online learning could provide every student with access to a world-class education, regardless of where they live.

The old adage declares: find the right tool for the job. As the son of a farmer, my dad would never use a plow when a disc was all that was needed. A pitcher won’t throw a fastball when a change-up will do the trick. And a teacher should use e-learning when…now that’s the question.

It’s clear that e-learning is and will continue to be a valuable “tool” for educators. But a tool is worthless without knowing its purpose. Melvin Marshall’s story is a disturbing example of how a tool can become a detriment rather than asset. Each institution, school district, principal, and teacher must determine: what is the job that needs to be done and what is the tool that’s going to do it?

Do the students need deeper immersion with other cultures and languages? Do the teachers need a better way to collect and analyze data? Do students need additional social and emotional supports? Does a university need to reach a certain demographic online that it can’t reach in traditional classrooms? E-learning is a good tool for some of these issues, and a bad tool for others.

Educators must be goal-oriented and thoughtful when deploying e-learning strategies. When e-learning is designed and implemented toward a specific purpose and population, students, teachers, and parents see exciting results. For example, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), an organization dedicated to expanding and improving foreign language instruction, offers its members both in-person supports and online resources. In August, ACTFL will launch four specialized online courses specifically designed to help K-12 language teachers make the most of current and emerging technologies in foreign language instruction. If all e-learning strategies are approached with the same careful consideration and research, then great strides in education reform are on the horizon.

I’m excited about the potential technology holds for our students and educators in the 21st Century. But e-learning will not solve our problems on its own. Through the course of their academic careers, we teach our students to think critically and ask questions like who, what, where, when, and why? We should do our best to ensure that e-learning strategies are held to those very same standards. If we do so, these will be powerful and useful tools to ensure our students are ready for the 21st Century.

Written by Alex Medler, Ph.D., Vice President of Policy and Advocacy, National Association of Charter School Authorizers

The use of online and blended learning is one of the ways the charter school sector is rich with innovation. Charter schools using technology innovate in their curriculum, pedagogy, use of time, and in defining the roles and responsibilities of teachers and other staff, to name just a few areas. Despite innovation, there is also tremendous variation in the performance of charter schools that incorporate online learning. Some charter schools offering blended learning are doing quite well. However, according to state accountability systems and state tests, some large, fully online charter schools perform poorly, with too many students failing to reach state standards.

One of the specific challenges that may contribute to failure in fully online charter schools is whether students are ready and able to thrive in such a school given the unique aspects of online learning. To thrive, students may need prerequisite skills, support from some adult in their home who can respond to short-term challenges as they come up and keep them on task, and the internal drive and motivation to succeed when there is no adult watching. Poor results in some of the largest K-12 online schools suggest that, among other potential issues, too many students without these necessary characteristics or support structures are being attracted—and often recruited—to these schools.

This dynamic is complicated by a long-standing concern that some charter schools might discriminate, picking the students that are easiest to teach while sending the hard-to-teach students away. Hence the federal requirement that charter schools use lotteries in their enrollment. Yet rather than protecting students from being sent away by schools that do not want to serve them, insisting that all schools serve all interested students without determining whether they should be enrolled may in fact be facilitating the recruitment of students who would honestly have been better off if someone had told them to go elsewhere. Even if fully online schools wanted to discourage a student from enrolling when he or she appears incapable of succeeding in the program, school leaders may believe they are required to keep mum about it.

It is in no one’s interest to enroll a student in an online school when it is clear to the school operator that the student is unable to succeed in the online environment. From the policy perspective, embracing fully-informed choice, and encouraging schools to help potential students make good choices may require changes to regulations, as well as changes to incentives established in funding and accountability systems. We should explore funding and accountability models that compensate schools based on the number of students that demonstrate success rather than fully funding any students that show up. Admissions and enrollment procedures could be adjusted to provide probationary periods where students can demonstrate initial success; or we should encourage schools to create procedures that require each potential student to get their computer up and running, log on, and do some real work before they are considered fully enrolled.

In practice, it is charter school authorizers who must determine the fate of the online charter schools they oversee. Authorizers face particular challenges when it comes to handling schools that use online learning. In general, authorizers can assess blended learning schools with the same tools they use for traditional brick-and-mortar charter schools. With fully online schools, however, it can be challenging for the school to document each student’s initial enrollment and later participation, to demonstrate the average student’s growth amid high rates of student turnover, and to administer assessments and special education programs appropriately, among other issues. (Authorizers interested in strengthening their practices and exploring issues associated with authorizing online and blended learning schools can find a variety of materials at NACSA’s website, at: NACSA Cyber Series Page).

In the charter approval process, authorizers are tasked with evaluating a school’s likelihood of success, and similarly must assess the success of a currently operating school in determining whether it should be renewed or closed at the end of its charter term. The most important factor in judging a school at the end of its charter term is student academic performance; and each state’s accountability system provides important information for assessing that performance. Schools that succeed deserve to stay open. Those that truly rock should be used as models or encouraged to replicate. Charter schools that cannot demonstrate student learning, regardless of the degree to which they use technology, should be closed.

Charter schools continue to be leaders in innovation in both teaching and learning; but we may also need to innovate in how we fund and oversee fully online charter schools if we are to effectively address the needs of each student.

It’s hard to know where to start with this jumbled prompt, but it did bring me out of retirement. As I have outlined, the emerging benefits of digital learning include:

·Customized learning allows students to vary rate, time, location, and (increasingly) path--that means more learning per hour.

·Engaging content and the motivation of instant feedback attack boredom and extend learning.

·High access environments and take home tech for every student that will narrow the digital divide and extend access to quality teachers and content.

New instructional approaches like visual game-based ST Math have proven gap-closing results in thousands of schools. New adaptive platforms like Dreambox and i-Ready are racking up impressive gains. New tools power top performing schools that blend online and onsite learning.

Where states allow it, millions of students are blending their own learning by taking online courses. Having help launch two virtual schools, Robyn Bagley talks passionately about the students that benefit from new high quality learning options.

Rather than reducing interaction, online and blended learning can increase high value interaction between teachers and students.

Digital learning, most often expressed in a blend, is the best shot we have at boosting US achievement and completion rates. It's also how quality secondary learning opportunities will be extended to hundreds of millions of young people in developing economies. The ability to motivate, customize, and equalize makes the shift to personal digital learning the most profound transition in the history of formal education.

If Americans segregate themselves in to two camps—those who believe digital learning is the perfect educational transformation of our time—and those who believe it’s a worthless substitute— the students lose. Mounting evidence shows that digital learning can improve student outcomes by increasing opportunities for individualized feedback, adaptation of experience, and extended learning time—all at a customized pace.

There’s also evidence that in some cases it’s not better than simply posting a textbook online. The time has come to put aside the question of whether or not digital learning “works” for students. We need new, more important questions, like:

What approaches to digital learning will benefit which learners under what conditions?

What different or additional supports afforded by digital learning will help which learners?

Dialogue, not encampment, is key. Ideology won’t raise our PISA scores or help prepare our young people for college and careers.

Knowledgeworks has learned a great deal about what the future of education will look like. Our tool for envisioning what lies ahead, the 2020 Forecast (http://futureofed.org), is research that tells us how the education system must be re-envisioned and re-created if it is to meet the challenges of the coming years. In this new education system or, as Knowledgeworks calls it, World of Learning:

• Education centers on the needs of learners, not those of institutions. Teaching is tailored to an individual student’s needs and abilities.

• Learners take charge of their education. Students and families seek out information and experiences from an array of sources rather than depending on single schools to direct their learning.

• Children gain 21st-century knowledge and skills—how to make decisions, solve problems and create solutions—through hands-on experiences that cross subject areas and are connected to the real world.

• Success is judged through a wide array of measures that account for different learning styles and assess capabilities and progress, not simply acquisition of knowledge. Data of all types support student learning.

• Teachers are more than content specialists. The teaching profession diversifies to include such roles as learning coaches, authentic assessment designers, and community liaisons.

• Learning isn’t limited to a physical place or time of day, but is blended, mobile and constant, with wireless technologies allowing learning anywhere, anytime, any pace.

Unfortunately, the vision emerging from our study of the future doesn’t much resemble the world of schooling most of us know today. I doubt pretending digital learning doesn’t have its pitfalls will help us create the education experiences our students need, and neither will relentlessly blasting the truly promising innovations that need time to grow and improve.

Everyone needs to break camp and redirect energies toward creating the future of learning our young people deserve.

I have taught traditional face-to-face courses, completely online courses, and hybrid ones (courses in which the teacher and students interact both physically and virtually). Most of these courses have been at the community college level; although I have had high school dual-enrollment students in them. In my experience and that of many of the teachers I know across the country, e-learning has gotten mixed reviews.

On the one hand, it can be a wonderfully effective way to make education accessible to a wider range of students, and to give students access to instructors and resources they might not otherwise have. However, just as in traditional classrooms, the quality of instruction varies depending on a number of factors, the major two being the student and the teacher. Almost any subject that can be taught face-to-face can be taught via electronic medium---if the teacher is willing to learn how to do that type of teaching, and if the student is willing to do that type of learning.

Teaching online requires different type of planning, delivery, and use of resources. I can talk to my students in real time using the webcam and programs such as Skype, or various live chat programs that now come with our online learning management systems. I can also post podcasts or videos of instruction by me or by others that students may access at their convenience. I can link to any number of resources on the web, and often my students submit suggested resources to share with their classmates. We can have ongoing discussions via electronic forums; we can exchange all types of documents, presentations, or images. The online environment can be a very vibrant and engaging setting for teaching and learning.

It can also be a confusing wasteland. Some instructors only post a print copy of their lecture notes and leave students to figure them out alone. Later, the instructor posts an automatically-scored, multiple choice test. Poor teaching in the classroom translates to even poorer teaching online. Most accredited schools that offer online courses must show some effort to verify identification of the student as the one doing the work. At my institution and others, that means the student must travel to a location with a certified proctor, and present identification to take at least one exam during the course (usually the final, and sometimes a mid-term as well). Other programs have no safeguards at all. Some online instructors require students to login or submit work daily or weekly; others simply wait to see who takes the final exam. I’ve heard many students complain about online instructors who won’t answer their email or give feedback on work. These tend to be the classes that students find most frustrating, especially when trying e-learning for the first time.

As this area expands, we are learning more about what it takes to be a successful online teacher, and in many cases, teachers ourselves, are leading the push to take online instruction to its full potential. One example is Shannon C’de Baca, one of the teacher co-authors with me on the book, Teaching 2030. Shannon has been teaching online for years. She developed a lab intensive chemistry course for Iowa students who did not have an available chemistry teacher. She has received numerous awards for her teaching and works to make exceptional online courses accessible for all students. Other examples include teacher-led efforts such as Powerful Learning Practice Network, co-founded by teacher and technology coach, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and international ed-tech expert, Will Richardson. PLP Network offers e-courses for teachers including courses on how to teach online.

As my colleagues and I point out in our look at the future of teaching in Teaching 2030, however, we are a long way from replacing traditional schooling completely with e-learning. Most of us see a blending and blurring of where teaching and learning happen as we move forward. One result, we believe, will be wider use of teams of teachers, some based in a brick-and-mortar school hub; others working virtually with the same students. To get there from here, we will have to dramatically change both how we prepare teachers and how the profession is structured.

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