Digital Learning Day: The Town Hall Meeting

Federal Communication Chairman Julius Genachowski and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan are scheduled to be the featured speakers at the Digital Day National Town Hall Meeting, which is being held virtually.
During the meeting, teachers, students, and leaders in the digital education movement from Colorado to North Carolina,and from Texas to Ohio, will discuss everything from blended learning to mastery of subject to the pros and cons of virtual education.
The event will conclude with a look at the Reconnecting McDowell project in West Virginia, a comprehensive, long-term effort to make educational improvement in this home of the coal mining industry.
The Town Hall meeting is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. Eastern, that's 10 a.m. on the Pacific Coast.
Here is a link to watch the event.  A piece of advice: So you don't have to wait to get online to watch the Town Hall, login in 5-10 minutes before the event starts.

Digital Learning Day: The Webcast

If you are on the Pacific Coast, you will have to be up and at a computer screen before the crack of dawn.
But it should be worth it.
The Alliance for Excellent Education is hosting a webcast that will present an in-depth look at important elements of digital learning--leadership, innovation, instruction strategies, effective teaching, and professional development opportunities.
Just in case you miss the morning webcast, sections of the webcast will be re-broadcast beginning at 9 a.m. Pacific (that's noon on the East Coast).
Click here for a detailed schedule of events. Click here for a link to the webcast.

Michael B. Horn: Digital Learning Day Cometh

With the arrival on February 1, 2012 of the first-ever national Digital Learning Day, the disruptive innovation of K-12 online learning—from in blended-learning environments to remote ones—seems to be taking yet another step toward the mainstream.
For over a couple decades, supporters of technology in education have talked of its potential benefits in transforming education. But beyond a set of enthusiastic early adopters, the use of technology in formal education remained largely stalled. Its talked-about benefits remained unrealized at best, as the cramming of computers produced few notable results that scaled.
With the rise of online learning, that began to change. Its growth is rapid and undeniable. Increasingly we’re seeing online learning stretch beyond areas of non-consumption—where the alternative is nothing at all and where disruptive innovations first take root.
Click here to learn more about the goals of the first Digital Learning Day.

Tom Vander Ark: Why States Should Require Online Learning

Question: What do algebra and online learning have in common?
Answer: Most kids would not experience either if not required.
Graduation requirements translate society's expectations to the young. It's our collective best guess at the knowledge and skills they will need to participate in the society they will inherit. If we did not require algebra, not many students would take it. Low-income, minority, and struggling students would be steered away from advanced math. Setting minimum education requirements promotes equity and participation.
All high school students should take at least one course online while in high school, according to Digital Learning Now!, the state policy project co-chaired by former governors Jeb Bush and Bob Wise. This recommendation, and all 10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning, resulted from the vigorous discourse of 100 experts.
The recommendation is based on the fact that nearly all young people will learn online after high school, whether it's in college, corporate, or military training. Online and blended learning is rapidly becoming the dominant mode of formal and informal post-secondary learning. High school is a great place to discover learning online.
Click here to read more on why I believe this is a necessary graduation requirement in the 21st century.

Guest Commentary: Inspecting the Inspectprate--Why Not Start with Online Schools

In his "The Quick & The Ed" blog, Education Sector Managing Editor Bill Tucker launched a debate about reviving the traditional of physical visits to school campuses as a part of an accountability program.
It's done in England, Tucker says, but he wonders, would in work in the United States?
Needless to say, this concept has stirred up some dust.
"The problem with big new ideas is often the very thing that makes them appealing: they are disruptive towards the status quo, making them extremely difficult to either imagine or implement. And, in the context of state accountability systems, school inspection is a big idea," Tucker wrote.
"Nowhere are our current oversight and school accountability systems more lacking than when it comes to assessing the performance of online and other alternative schools. While test score data and measures such as adequate yearly progress (AYP) have limitations for all schools — particularly those serving disadvantaged students — they are even more problematic for virtual schools operating on competency-based and other alternative educational models," he continued.
Tucker understands that it is impossible to physically visit an online school, but he does have some ideas on how to "balance accountability with innovation. Click here to find out more.

Michael B. Horn: For Digital Learning, the Devil’s in the Details

With Digital Learning Now providing a "“Roadmap for Reform,” that is a a guide to help states navigate different paths toward changing their online education policies, and non-profits such as the Khan Academy providing digitally-based Open Education Resources to schools, one might assume that moving into the future of online learning will be a straightforward exercise.
It isn't that easy, as I write in the Spring 2012 issue of Education Next.
Crafting a viable funding model for online courses that makes sense for districts and providers alike has not been easy. Even more challenging is helping schools and districts transition to a world in which students still need some of the services they provide but take most of their courses online. How does funding work in this model? How do schools create the flexible schedules and offer the critical services—many of which may be nonacademic—to accommodate students’ varying needs? How do they transition to this service—or community center—model?
Suggesting that a road map document could tackle such complexity isn't fair. But a glimpse into the exciting— and uncertain—future presented by Digital Learning Now! does raise many legitimate questions. That’s no reason to delay implementing its recommendations though; innovation is never perfect right out of the box.
Click here to read my entire article and find out why I believe innovations will clear many of the familiar roadblocks.

Guest Commentary: Bryan Setser's Advice to Governors with State-Led Virtual Schools

Bryan Setser is well known in the virtual education community. He is the former leader of the the North Carolina Virtual School. He has won numerous national awards for his work developing and expanding online learning opportunities. Currently, he is  CEO of Setser Group which focuses on cultivating blended learning programs; guiding leadership coaching and evaluation, and promoting new school model design.
Recently, Setser wrote an article "4 Steps for Governors to Turn a State Virtual School Into Services Provider," which boldly asked, "Who will be the first Governor with the guts to turn their state virtual school into a virtual services provider?"
"The services could be virtual district/school incubation, professional development, light virtual services, and consulting (coaching and training). Work with the legislature could re-organize the funding streams to provide more local control with incentives to utilize new technologies and funding models," he wrote.
Click here to read the steps Setser believes need to be taken to make this shift happen.

Guest Commentary: Commnwealth Foundation CEO Says Schools in Pennsylvania Prove Competition Works

The Allentown Morning Call recently published an op-ed written by Matthew J. Brouillette, president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation, a Pennsylvania-based free-market think tank
In the article headlined, "Competition for Students Will Improve Education," Brouillette wrote, "In Pennsylvania, family demand for spots in cyber schools has skyrocketed, with enrollment exploding from zero students a decade ago to nearly 28,000 today. In response, several school districts now offer their own online learning programs. Cyber schools, charter schools and scholarships funded by businesses are restoring opportunity and a future for children once left behind."
"Instead of a one-size-fits-all system of education," he continued, "we need to fully embrace an education marketplace where choice and competition is the rule rather than the exception."

Click here to read the entire article.

Guest Commentary: Could Open Education Resources Widen the Digital Divide? (video)

First, a hat tip to Education Week's Digital Education blogger Katie Ash for pointing to this.
Justin Reich, a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has posted a video about his research open education resources (OER) and the impact on education equity.
Common wisdom would lead one to think that OER, combined with mobile devices, expansion of virtual education and other online learning opportunities, would go a long way to closing the digital divide.
Reich says his research doesn't point to that result.
Click here for Reich's video on his work and to learn about his Jan. 17 presentation, which will be webcast live, on whether OER actually might widen the digital divide.

Guest Commentary: The Fordham Institute on the 'Cost of Online Learning'

The Thomas Fordaham Institute is a nationally recognized organization that supports research, publications, and projects involving in elementary/secondary education reform.

Currently, it is sponsoring a series of reports on policy directions and guidelines for the virtual education movement.  So far, these papers have looked at quality control, the role of teachers and school finance. 

Now the institute has issued the much awaited report on the cost of online learning.

From the statehouse to the courthouse to the boardroom to the playground, this is going to get the virtual education community talking.  For years, online learning has been sold to lawmakers as a low-cost alternative to traditional bricks-and-mortar schools.

But virtual charter management companies--non-profits and for-profits--often say that states can't whack per pupil funding just because the kids aren't in a classroom. A quality education still demands a quality expenditures.

Last year Georgia went on a roller coaster ride over the per pupil expenditure for virtual charter schools. The aftershock of a Georgia Supreme Court decision on the matter is still be felt, and dealt with, in the Georgia Legislature.

With that as a back drop, the Fordham Institutes's paper, "The Cost of Online Learning" enters the scene. It says:

"In this paper, the Parthenon Group uses interviews with more than 50 vendors and online schooling experts to estimate today's average per-pupil cost for a variety of schooling models, traditional and online, and presents a nuanced analysis of the important variance in cost between different school designs. These ranges—from $5,100 to $7,700 for full-time virtual schools, and $7,600 to $10,200 for the blended version."

Click here for a copy of the full report. Also check back with Liberating Learning as we  look in-depth at the report and provide detailed coverage on the reaction to the report's findings from the online learning community.

Michael B. Horn: School Finance in the Digital-Learning Era: A Review

The Fordham Institute continued its critical series exploring how to create sound policy for digital learning in November with two new papers, “Teachers in the Age of Digital Instruction” by Bryan C. Hassel and Emily Hassel, and “School Finance in the Digital-Learning Era” by Paul T. Hill. And more are on the way soon, including important ones exploring local control in the digital era and the true—and hotly debated—costs of online learning.
Hill’s paper tackles the other side of the coin of the costs of online learning, as he works through the ideal funding system that would promote innovation but strike the right balance with the need for accountability for public funds. The key tenets of his proposed ideal system are that it funds education, not institutions; moves money as students move; pays for unconventional forms of instruction; and withholds funding for ineffective programs without chilling innovation
It’s a good idea, too. But Hill’s changes are unlikely to be so simple to deliver. The reason why lies in his up-front analysis, when he writes about why today’s education system is so flawed: “Our system doesn't fund schools, and certainly doesn't fund students. It funds district-wide programs, staff positions, and so forth.”
Click here to read my complete review of Hill's paper and why I believe education funding needs a serious business model innovation.

Guest Commentary: Georgia Public Policy Foundation Says Expanding Digital Learning Opportunities Should be on Legislature's Agenda

Kelly McCutchen is president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, a research and education foundation dedicated to limited government, private enterprise, and individual responsibility. In a recent op-ed article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, McCutchen outline some of the issues the Georgia Legislature should tackle this term in order to "reshape state government."
Digital learning was on McCutchen's agenda.
"Digital learning is poised to fundamentally transform k-12 education over the next decade," McCutchen wrote. "Georgia must embrace this chance to remove barriers to a stellar education for poor- and middle-class students, starting with restoring the state’s ability to offer educational opportunities that don’t trap children within local school system borders."
Click here to read the complete article and learn why McCutchen  would like to see the Georgia Constitution amended to help the growth of online learning.

Guest Commentary: NYT's Online Debate 'The Frontier of Classroom Technology'

If you are part of the virtual education community, there is no doubt that the New York Times ongoing series of stories "Grading the Digital School" has come up as a subject of conversations.
Proponents of the series say the Times is shining a light fair on issues in online learning world. From for-profit companies that are entering the arena to where some of the children of Silicon Valley's Tech elite go to school (a Waldorf school that frowns on even letting the kids of the tech-savvy watch TV.)
Critics of the series aren't so kind. In a recent blog post titled "NY Times Declares War on the Future," Liberating Learning Blog contributor Tom Vander Ark wrote, "The New York Times has launched a full on war on education technology—except for when it’s in their own benefit."
"I cancelled my subscription to the Times. It was the paper of record but it’s just another pandering tabloid," Vander Ark concluded.
In an online opinion forum called "The Frontier of Classroom Technology," the Times takes a 360-degree look at edtech. Six "debaters" represent a variety of views on the intersection of education and technology. For example, Paul Thomas of Furman University calls a lot of edtech "a misguided use of money." Will Richardson, author of "Personal Learning Networks: Using the Power of Connections to Transform Education" writes, "Our kids are stuck in a paper-based, local-learning system that doesn't acknowledge the global, networked, always-on opportunities that mobile access affords.
Click here to read the forum and the more than 140 responses to debaters.

Guest Commentary: Alliance for Excellent Education Revisits its 'The Digital Learning Imperative'

Researchers don't often go back to their published work to see if their predictions came true. But that's exactly what the Alliance for Excellent Education did.

 Founded by former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise, the Alliance published "The Digital Learning Imperative" in 2010. It contained bold predictions and prescriptions for the future of virtual education.

Wise would go on to join former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in launching Digital Learning Now, an advocacy group that has developed model legislative strategies for expanding online learning opportunities.

Two years after the publication of "The Digital Learning Imperative," the  Alliance for Excellent Education returned to the original report. In the 2012 version, researchers revisit state education budgets, teacher quality and the impact digital learning has made, and can make, on education and public policy  in the future.

The researchers also take a second look at some of the original assumptions. In some cases, they broaden definitions of digital learning (blended learning take an important step into the spotlight).

"Simply slapping a netbook on top of a textbook, however, will not necessarily lead to significant 

outcomes. Critical for learning success with digital learning is developing a comprehensive strategy that  has a foundation of involvement and sustained career training for teachers—not occasional professional development—which concentrates not just on the technology, but also on the pedagogical skills needed to use the technology in teaching and learning," the researchers write.

"Piecemeal, incremental action is taking place in some states to move toward more digital textbooks, for example, or toward 1:1 laptop/device programs," they note.  But without well- thought-out policies that consider quality, the importance of teaching, and the experience of the student, these fragmented efforts will produce no better results than reform efforts of the past decades."

Click here to read the complete report.

Guest Commentary: Plans for Online Ed Initiative in California Gets Fiscal Thumbs Up from State

John Fensterwald is the editorial  muscle behind the Silicon Valley Education Foundation's "Thoughts on Public Education" blog. In a recent post, he raised the curtain on the next act in the state's effort to expand online learning opportunities.
"With a formal title and a favorable fiscal analysis in hand, backers of an initiative to broaden access to online college preparatory classes will begin gathering signatures (on Jan. 4) to qualify for the November ballot," Fensterwald wrote.
California's "Legislative Analyst’s Office and the Department of Finance, in a four-page analysis concluded that the initiative in the long run would create "savings potentially in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually' for local school districts 'if schools experience efficiencies and widespread participation in the use of online courses,' " Fensterwald continued.
Click here to read more of his post.

Michael B. Horn: California Initiative Brings Breath of Fresh Air

It’s an embarrassment that California, the state that led the technology revolution in America, is, according to Digital Learning Now, last in the nation in using technology to transform its education system from its current factory-model roots into a student-centric one.
California policy has done its best to create a byzantine—some might say bizarre—set of regulations to frustrate the power of online learning to do just that. From geographic barriers that limit the ability of students in certain locales to access online learning to restricting blended learning in some unfortunate ways, California has created a maze to frustrate would-be innovators.
There have been some attempts by legislators over the last couple of years to begin to rectify some of these problems, but they have only stalled. Although some charter school operators, such as Rocketship Education and KIPP Empower, as well as some school districts, like Riverside School District, have created stellar blended-learning models, the most advanced school districts in California in online and blended learning have seen their efforts frustrated and curtailed. Even the exciting emerging blended-learning models appearing throughout California in response to tight budgets are limited in how innovative they could be by California’s regulatory landscape.
Against this backdrop, a group called Education Forward has introduced “The California Student Bill of Rights Act”—a proposed ballot initiative that would unlock some of the most onerous barriers to online and blended learning in California. But it would do so in an indirect way.
Click here to read more of my thoughts on "The California Student Bill of Rights Act."