Category Archives: Online Schools

I’m a little bit tired today, having Tweeted up a storm at the Donnell-Kay Foundation’s Colorado Summit on Blended Learning. I have neither the time nor the energy to recap the great presentations from the likes of iNACOL’s David Teeter, Utah Senator Howard Stephenson, New Hampshire Deputy Commissioner Paul Leather, Colorado Department of Education Assistant Commissioner Amy Anderson and Colorado Senator Michael Johnston. But I can take advantage of the incredible timing to share a brand-new issue paper from my Education Policy Center friends titled Online Course-Level Funding: Toward Colorado Secondary Self-Blended Learning Options. It’s about following the lead of states like Utah and Florida to give students more freedom of course selection through the power of digital technology and a system that allows the funding to follow:

Do I write enough here about blended learning? Probably not. The fascinating and significant topic has many different manifestations, and developments change so fast that it’s hard to get a really solid grasp of what it is. The respected gurus at the Innosight Institute define blended learning as: a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace and at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home. That definition comes from the new report Classifying K-12 blended learning by Heather Staker and Michael Horn. Why come up with a new report? To improve the system of classifying different blended learning models. After consulting with many other education experts, they reduced the number of identifiable models from six to four (skipping right over my favorite number — five!):

To all my fellow education policy geeks out there, it appears that national TV executives have heard our cries and given us what we wanted. I’m not talking about the recent two-hour NBC Education Nation teacher town hall in Denver. However, you really ought to listen to the podcast interview with Branson Online elementary teacher Christina Narayan, as she explained her perspective from attending the event. Nor am I talking about the fact that my family’s favorite Friday night show The Devil’s Advocate last week featured a conversation with Tim Farmer from the Professional Association of Colorado Educators about House Bill 1333, the “options for teachers” legislation. Yes, that’s great, too. But I am thinking about something that could be potentially bigger and feed my video-watching appetite for a long time to come. Choice Media TV’s Bob Bowdon has unveiled the new series Reform School: A Public Forum on Changing American Education. The inaugural episode features a lively discussion on the federal role in education policy with Democrats for Education Reform‘s Joe Williams and Dr. Jay Greene of the University of Arkansas. Two clips have been released on the Choice Media site:

Digital learning is much more than a buzzword. It’s a real trend in K-12 education that’s growing faster than any single person or entity can keep up with. The effective use of technology in instruction to enhance student learning experiences takes on a variety of forms — including full-time online education programs and numerous blended learning models. Like many other reforms, it can be done well or done badly. While digital learning is no magical silver bullet to save every student in every school, neither is it something to be feared. Rather, the opportunity needs to be embraced as a tool to strengthen and enhance the reach of quality instruction, to improve and diversify curricula, to focus staff time and energy, and provide for more productive use of education dollars. I can’t begin to try to point you to all the important nooks and crannies of this issue, but the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has brought together some of the best current thinking in their new book Education Reform for the Digital Era. (If you’d rather pop up some popcorn, Fordham also has just released a 90-minute video panel discussion on this very theme.) Well worth the read is the […]

The Professional Association of Colorado Educators (PACE) — a young, small, but growing (Hey, sounds like me!) non-union teacher membership organization — this week released the results of a member survey on some key education policy issues facing our state. With a Spring Break Friday sailing me away into lazy oblivion, today seemed like the perfect opportunity to step back and see the informed opinions of more than 100 Colorado teachers. Without further ado on this quick-hit post, here are some results from the PACE member survey:

Do you ever get lost, driving around a big city and missing your destination? Maybe you pass the same landmark two, three, or even four times, getting more frustrated along the way. Maybe your GPS is malfunctioning, or maybe you just wish you had a GPS! For me, the feeling comes as I search for the pirates’ buried stash of gold doubloons (okay, it’s really some of those chocolate candies wrapped in gold foil, but please play along). What makes it so much easier to find the treasure? That’s right, a map. A treasure map. X marks the spot. Now it isn’t exactly the same, but today my Education Policy Center friends officially released “The Future of Colorado Digital Learning: Crafting a Policy Roadmap for Reform.” A quick read with some pretty graphics (thanks, Tracy!), it lays out the main policy changes that many of the state’s online education leaders see as important — including some of the important changes Center director Pam Benigno highlighted in an op-ed last fall. From the media release sent out this morning:

Hard to believe it was five months ago I asked the question: Is major education reform about ready to give Iowa a try? At the heart of the story is a local connection. Jason Glass, appointed the state’s education chief a little more than a year ago by incoming Governor Terry Branstad, has some notable Colorado roots. Branstad and Glass forwarded a fairly bold plan for the Hawkeye State. Ideas included significant changes to teacher preparation, pay and retention; focusing on literacy through cutting back on social promotion; school accountability enhancements; and more flexibility and student opportunity through charters, online programs and other public education options. Of course, the state’s top executive certainly can’t — nor should he be able to — update laws by fiat. Still, Gov. Branstad’s plan has faced a particularly difficult time since being launched in the Iowa legislature in February. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow provides some of the detail in a new story for School Reform News:

One of this blog’s themes that regular readers are familiar with is the power of digital technology to help transform the capability and productivity of public education. Combined with the right policies and innovative direction of resources, this technology has tremendous potential to effect positive change. Digital Learning Now’s Roadmap for Reform released last October — not to mention a forthcoming (or so I’m told) Colorado version — highlights some great ideas. One policy action endorsed by Digital Learning Now is that the “state ensures all public school students and teachers have Internet access devices.” Definitely a worthy goal, inasmuch as it helps to equip students for a 21st century career. But it also can be a double-edged sword. As a new article by Kristina Iodice in the Colorado Springs Gazette points out, giving students take-home access to iPads is fraught with danger if not done right: Manitou Springs School District 14 is in the middle of a two-year rollout of iPads to many of its roughly 1,420 students. In the fall 2011, about 490 students in fifth through eighth grade, and 90 high school students, received the devices. About 500 high school students will get them in the coming […]

I’m still catching my breath from an amazingly successful National School Choice Week, including the Kids Aren’t Cars movie night put on by some of my friends right here in Denver. And now today it’s the first-ever Digital Learning Day, centered at a site where you can participate in a live chat and watch a series of webcasts, including an online national townhall meeting at 1 PM Eastern (11 AM Mountain). Colorado is well represented, as the townhall features National Online Teacher of the Year Kristen Kipp from Jeffco Virtual Academy. Also, at 1:30 PM ET / 11:30 AM MT, our local Englewood High School will be one of numerous school sites around the country interacting online via Skype. I tell you what. There is so much more going on in the digital learning arena here in Colorado, and my Education Policy Center friends are right in the middle of it. If you haven’t seen their helpful guide for parents that came out within the past couple months, you really need to check out Choosing a Colorado Online School for Your Child.

As last year was winding down, I told you that the issue of K-12 online and blended learning would be a big one going forward for Colorado in 2012. With the legislature now in session and the first-ever Digital Learning Day just around the corner, I found a timely article that deserves some attention here in Colorado. The Innosight Institute’s Michael Horn lays out the question of how to get from the national group Digital Learning Now!’s reform roadmap to a well-tailored solution in a given state, in this brand-new Education Next article: