Virtual Schooling Gets Real

Online-learning veterans discuss the misperceptions, obstacles, and opportunities of teaching in the next dimension.

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If the March report issued by the U.S. Department of Education is accurate, at least one-third of all public school districts are offering some sort of distance-education courses in their curricula (see page nine). And while that percentage will undoubtedly increase, the plethora of methods, services, and products that define distance education-also known as virtual schooling, e-learning, cyberschooling, online education, etc.—can be confusing, which is probably why two-thirds have yet to take the plunge.

To assist the uninitiated, Scholastic Administr@tor invited a number of virtual-school advocates to come together online and by telephone to help give this burgeoning phenomenon some shape. What follows are excerpts from this conversation, which in the spirit of virtual collaboration (or whatever you want to call it), continues online at
www.scholastic.com/administrator/virtualschool.

 

How They Do It

Technology Roadblocks

Who Provides It

Administr@tor: How would you advise those just beginning to explore the idea of virtual schooling to get started?

Adams: They need to do their homework, just as they would with any program in their school district. They need to basically figure out what questions they need to ask of the different providers so that they’re able to come up with an online experience that is going to fit their students’ needs. If they want to buy curriculum, that’s one thing. If they want to have their teachers trained so that teachers within their school district learn to teach online—and thus empower them to join the 21st century—that’s another model. There are all different things that they can do, but they first need to decide what is going to work for their school.

Frey: When we do our virtual leadership training, we refer to all of that as doing a needs-based analysis within their school or their district: What are the needs that are currently not being met? And then we determine if a virtual-education program will satisfy those needs.

If they think a virtual-education program will work, do they want to use their own teachers? Do they want to use someone else’s teachers? What types of courses do they want to deliver? Where are the gaps in their curriculum? The key is first to see where are the gaps within their school or their district that they want to fill—and then fill in those gaps.

Schweitzer: Whenever possible, I highly encourage parents to get their child enrolled, especially at the high school level, in any sort of online course. It just behooves them to have that experience in a safe environment. As they go on to college and they get out into the workforce, if they are unable to participate in a bulletin-board discussion—or in a teleconference or in remote-access learning that’s done via the Internet—they are going to find themselves at a great disadvantage.

Administr@tor: What are the biggest misperceptions people have with the concept of virtual schools?

Adams: Very often, the average high school student might think that you have to be a techie, that it has something to do with computer programming. In fact, most courses offered online are not in the field of technology. [Students] also often think that they’re easier, somehow. Instead, they find out that [the courses] are written to standards just as high, if not higher, than they’re used to encountering in their own school systems.

Lentz: We always had to deal with students who thought that a virtual course would be much easier. We would get a phone call from students who wanted to start a course on Friday and be finished with it by Sunday—just do a little work over the weekend and be done.

Frey: That’s true. I think that sometimes our families expect that this is not as difficult as a regular brick-and-mortar school, when our program really is sometimes more difficult.

Lentz: We have very much debunked that myth in the state of Florida in that our courses are now known to be rigorous. I think the biggest problem that students have isunderstanding that the course is standards based, and they must meet all of the standards in the course in order to get credit for it.

And as ex–classroom teachers, we know that you have those students who come to class, sleep during the class period, and do just enough work to get by. But in an online course, if you don’t do the work today, the work is still there for you tomorrow and the next day and the next day. And it’s got to get done before you’re going to be finished with the course. That’s a major shift for a lot of students.

Schweitzer: One of the first conversations that I have with parents is to explain that there’s a distinction between virtual and cyber. If it’s virtual, that means the student and the teacher are in two different locales. Cyber means you’re receiving your instruction—your information—via the computer. And I think that it’s really important, especially at the K–8 level, to make that distinction. One thing we know is that students do not do well to sit in front of a computer day in and day out to receive their instruction. They need the textbook, the workbook. They need the handwriting, they need manipulatives, to really get the abstract content and thought into concrete knowledge.

Administr@tor: What about the obstacles—technical and otherwise—that prevent this sort of teaching tool from becoming ubiquitous?

Adams: I think the digital divide still exists, and so lack of high-speed Internet access is an obstacle.

Lentz: There has to be equity of access. All students should be able to get connected, and they aren’t yet. They all need to have computers at their homes to be able to take advantage of the opportunity. But there also has to be that level of connectivity that would allow us to put more multimedia within our courses.

We’re working with a generation that’s used to video games and lots of multimedia in their world outside of school. But that level of multimedia we’re really not able to put in courses that are currently delivered over the Internet because the bandwidth just is not available for that. And so there’s the term “power down” used. There still is a sense that they’re powering down when they come to our courses.

Adams: Then there are policy issues. For example, if you’re a virtual school, how do you deal with the question of teacher certification? In some states there are laws that no one other than the teacher certified in that particular state can teach in that state. But in spite of all of the different state-mandated tests, under No Child Left Behind we’re supposed to be writing courses to national standards, not individual state standards. And yet states will not allow courses to be offered unless they are written to the individual state standards as well.

Frey: That’s a good point. Oftentimes, the rules that we have to follow—for example, taking an October 1 count date—don’t fit the virtual model. Obviously we’re diligent about trying to meet all of the requirements for the state of Colorado. But it’s often very difficult to do that, because the policies, the framework, and the rules are not written for virtual schools—they’re written for brick-and-mortar schools. So it provides a lot of challenges for us.

Lentz: One of the other challenges is the funding on which schools are based. It’s based on seat time and attendance counts done on certain days. Seat time doesn’t work in this virtual environment. It’s the achievement in the course that should be most important, not the amount of time a student spends in the course. But states have yet to adapt their rules.

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