Sunday 1 February 2009

Learning On Line - Study shows that it is increasing significantly in K-12 schools

A study carried out by Anthony Picciano and Jeff Seaman for the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C ) shows that there is a significant increase in online and blended learning in K-12 schools.
The first study was done in school year 05-06 and the current report compares this with 07-08. They report that there was a 47% increase in the number of students engaged in online courses - now reaching over a million.
Three quarters of the 75% of districts that responded reported that they had one or more students doing fully online or blended courses.
The study mentions that for small rural districts, online courses enabled much greater student choice of courses, from those needing extra help or credit to advance placement and college level courses.
I was surprised to see that the students doing purely online courses (9016) K-5 was higher than those doing blended courses (305). The proportion of blended to courses to fully online increased for older students.
One lesson learnt was important. Students need much more discipline to succeed in an online course than a face-to-face one. It is not for everyone...

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