Brian @ CLRN

While I’ve often participated in WebEx conferences in the past, Web 2.0 tools have evolved greatly the past few years to include a number of free, open-source applications that perform the same functions. Last week, I searched through Google, looking for the perfect candidate for our CLRN Management Team meeting which took place yesterday.

At CLRN, we’ve spent the past year updating the back-end of our database, the part seen by CLRN reviewers and management team. While our users won’t see the benefits, or the changes, the new system is significantly different that we planned a web conference to demonstrate it to our review sites, roughly 20 team members. They program we chose, Yuuguu, proved to be a handy, easy to use, and scalable tool that we’re continuing to use for our work. I thoroughly recommend it.

YuuGuu requires that you download and install a desktop application for the primary presenter. I was impressed that YuuGuu completed applications for both Mac and Win platforms, since we’re cross-platform here at CLRN. Once you’ve installed the application and have created your account, sharing is incredibly simple. Opening YuuGuu, you’ll see an AOL/Yahoo type interface that allows you to set-up and save contacts for one-to-one sharing. After you click Web Share, though, you’re shown the PIN number that you can share with those who will connect to your conference. Conference attendees connect to: http://share.yuuguu.com and enter the PIN number to connect to you. Once in, they’ll see your screen including any applications you’re running and they’ll be able to communicate through a chat screen.

For CLRN’s work, we used our conferencing system, which all 20 participants are accustomed to using for our monthly phone calls. With YuuGuu and our conferencing system, there was no difference between YuuGuu and WebEx.

I was concerned whether we’d have problems with lag time, given the number of people who were connected. However, regardless whether we connected two or 20, rarely did more than one second pass before all users were seeing the same screen. Again, we’re quite impressed and we’ll be back for more.

While we were away in China, we discovered that Edublogs was blocked, so i was unable to update during my trip. I did, though, set up an alternate blog for my vacation ramblings. It can be found here.

A few vacation pictures are posted on our Picasaweb site.

• A trip to the great wall
• A walk in the park
• China/USA basketball game

Online Classes Boom

A July 11th New York Times article, High Cost of Driving Ignites Online Classes Boom, reaffirms other data sources that point to increased participation in online classes. This time, though, the cause is increased gas prices. Students, including those who were reluctant, are flocking to enroll in online college classes. “Gas prices have pushed people over the edge,” says Bucks County Community College director of online learning. At Buck, online enrollments are up 35% over last year.

The data are similar at other colleges around the nation. Bristol Community College in Massachusetts reports a 114% increase in online enrollment. Four-year colleges University of Massachusetts (46%) and Villanova (40%) are also seeing  surges in enrollment. David Gray, chief executive of UMass Online, summarizing discussions at an educators’ conference said, “There was broad agreement that gas price increases will be a source of continued growth in online enrollments.”

Online learning won’t be putting traditional face-to-face classes out of business. However, it does offer an alternative both to “nonconsumers” and to those who might not be served otherwise. However, we are still in an early-phase run-up to the tipping point. A variety of factors need to be addressed before online learning can reach critical mass.

Distance education is no silver bullet that can alone solve the challenges posed for higher education by rising gasoline prices, officials warned.

For one thing, many students, especially in rural areas, lack the high-speed Internet connections on which online courses depend.

“The infrastructure doesn’t exist to give all rural students clear online access,” said Stephen G. Katsinas, a professor at the University of Alabama. “Rural America is where the digital divide is most dramatic.”

Furthermore, most colleges still offer only a fraction of their courses over the Internet. Bucks County Community College, for instance, will offer 414 credit courses during the fall term. Only 103 of those will be offered online, and another 48 as hybrid courses, that is, partly online but with some campus visits required. So most students will still need to come to campus.

More from our reading, Disrupting Class, next time.

Disrupting Class, Disruptive Innovation, Christensen, computer-based learning, Bridges

This June, 2008 report from the Public Policy Institute of California presents a fair about of data about how adults use technology. Below are some of the tidbits I’ve pulled from the report. Granted, they only surveyed 2,503 adults, but there’s interesting data about the digital divide/generational divide.

1. 75% of California’s use a computer at home, school or work.
2. 52% use the Internet to shop (but the report didn’t indicate that this might be happening at work)
3. 56% of parents visit their children’s school web sites.
4. 50% of those under 35 use social networking web sites.

Here’s the divide, though.

1. 60% of those under 35 have a broadband connection at home vs. 44% for those over 55.
2. 85% of those earning $80K or more have a broadband connection at home vs. 33% of those earning under $40K
3. 68% of whites and 66% of blacks have broadband vs. 34% of latinos
4. 52% of those under 35 use social networking vs. 8% of us over 55. (and yet, Twitter is always down)
5. 74% of white parents access school web sites vs. 26% of latino families; 84% of parents earning over $80K access school sites vs. 30% of those earning under $40K.
6. 61% of those under 35 view the Internet as an important source of information for their everyday lives vs. 34% of those over 55.

Inquiring minds want to know. Now you do.

The War from Within

The revolution may not be televised, but it most certainly will be fought within blogs and opinion pages over the next generation. Once computer-based learning (CBL) and online learning reach critical mass within our schools, Christensen, in his book “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns,” predicts the next phase will be the move to Student-Centric Learning. This is the point where teachers begin to change from the “sage on the stage” to the “guide on the side.” Christensen’s reasoning is that CBL will do much of the heavy lifting since it will be able to take-on the role of “sage” while adapting to each student’s learning style. The role of teacher, then, will be to facilitate learning and to manage each student’s individualized learning plan. This is where the revolution will take place and great wars will be fought. It won’t be the first time that the student-centric model has been criticized, but this time, with the foundation of CBL already in place, perhaps the debate will be a bit more civilized. Perhaps.

In the meantime, we should turn to the debate.

First Person: School facilitators flunk the test, is an opinion piece published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. In it, retired teacher, Fred Strine, connects educational failure and student misbehavior with the move to student-centered learning. “Ban facilitators, the word and all its forms, and put on probation anyone caught in a classroom still claiming to be one,” he writes, and “Re-establish the traditional teacher-centered classroom…”.

Education requires discipline, both intellectual and behavioral, and discipline must be imposed before it becomes engrained.

student-centered learning allows the inexperienced and the undisciplined to become the standard. Who then is the model for students when today’s teachers merely facilitate as “guides on the side,” leaving students to discover on their own?

Strine’s last phrase, “leaving students to discover on their own” is at the core of his argument. However, in Christensen’s CBL world, the “sage on the stage” still exists in the form of a computer-based or online-based model. In it, the program or online  course is leading the instruction based on that particular student’s educational needs.

Take, for instance, what happens to teaching when teachers use pacing guides which require all teachers to be on the same page at the same time. If standard 1.3 must be mastered before 1.4 can be understood, but the pacing guide says you have to teach standard 1.4 today, what happens to students who don’t yet understand standard 1.3? While I totally agree with Strine’s remark, “Most real learning requires real work,” the teacher-centric model we’ve built bypasses students at the sake of timing. With computer-based and online-based learning, though, each student is constantly assessed regarding their knowledge of the standards and they only move on when they can demonstrate their mastery. The student-centric learning model outlined by Christensen is one where students still must study and master the curriculum outlined by the state. However, in it, teachers have the flexibility to intervene. His vision of “facilitator” is one where teachers are actively engaged in helping students master the standards.

I appreciate Fred Strine’s honesty and his words. However, if education is to change to ensure all students can master the standards, we will need many more Mr. Strines to step up to the plate. A civil discourse would benefit all of us.

Thanks to Joanne Jacobs for spotting this first.

disrupting class, disruptive innovation, Christensen, Bridges, CLRN

Evaluating Online Learning

From a variety of research reports noted here and in my Round 6 post, we could view CLRN and California as having either 1) completely missed the boat regarding research into, evaluation of and implementation of online courses or 2) become well positioned to stand on the shoulders of the giants who have experimented with online learning and the relevant research into their implementation. I vote for the latter. As CLRN begins to create a program to evaluate computer-based and online learning programs, the research articles below offer substantial findings regarding both reasons and criteria for our work.

Evaluating Online Learning/Computer-based Learning Programs

The US Department of Education just released a report on evaluating online learning programs, which builds on some of the resources listed below. Evaluating Online Learning, Challenges and Strategies for Success posed the following questions.

• How do you construct an evaluation design that can satisfy the demand for results even while program improvements are evolving?

• How do you measure the success of an online learning resource when there is no uniform way that it will be used by teachers or students?

• How do you collect data when it depends upon enlisting the support and participation of teachers and administrators who are widely dispersed geographically?

Five Academic Reasons: Why State Virtual Schools are Important to Your State

This brief document, which echoes many of Clayton Christensen’s arguments, looks at the academic reasons why states should take seriously the use of Web-based courses. The five reasons state that these online courses 1) provide courses that schools cannot or do not provide (non consumption); 2) provide credit-recovery courses; 3) give high schools students access to many different AP courses (mainly the orphans); 4) provide quality teachers to all middle grades and high schools, regardless of where students reside; and 5) provide students with access to quality teachers and quality courses to improve their chances of academic success.

Standards for Quality Online Courses

According to the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), “This publication, funded by the BellSouth Foundation, examines what constitutes a quality online course and outlines specific standards for course content, instructional design, student assessment, technology, and course evaluation and management.”  The Standards for Quality Online Courses is organized into five major sections:

• Content (content standards and assessments, course overview and introduction, legal and acceptable use policies, and teacher resources)
• Instructional Design (instructional and audience analysis; course unit and lesson design; goals and objectives; instructional strategies and activities; communication and interaction; and resources and materials)
• Student Assessment (evaluation strategies, adequate and appropriate methods and procedures, feedback, and assessment resources and materials)
• Technology (course architecture, user interface, technology requirements and interoperability, accessibility, and technical support)
• Course Evaluation and Management (Assessing Course Effectiveness, updating course, accreditation, and data security)

Checklist for Evaluating Online Courses

This 12 page rubric, based on the SREB report Standards for Quality Online Courses, outlines all the major and minor components listed within the standards. “It is designed to assist states and schools in determining the quality and effectiveness of online courses.”

NACOL National Standards of Quality for Online Courses

One year after SREB released their standards for online courses, NACOL amended them to create their own. The five-page rubric contains sections on content, instructional design, student assessment, technology, course evaluation, and 21st century skills.

disrupting class, disruptive innovation, Christensen, Bridges, CLRN

Online Learning Grows Closer to a Tipping Point

Two recently published reports provide yet more data about the slow but steady march towards a tipping point for computer-based learning. The first,  Learning in the 21st Century: A Trends Update, conducted by Project Tomorrow (formerly known as NetDay) is a follow-up to its initial report, Learning in the 21st Century: A National Report of Online Learning. The following is one quote from the report that summarizes the growing trend.

Students from elementary through high school are increasingly interested in online learning. Over 29% of middle school students and 36% of high school students have had some interaction with online learning – either through a class that is taught 100% online, a class with online components or through their own personal pursuit of learning via non-school related online courses. This explosion in familiarity with online learning represents an 80% increase in high school student experiences over 2006 data findings. An additional cohort of 24% of middle school students, and 33% of high school students who have not had direct experience with online courses say that they would be interested in taking an online class if available to them.

The second report, Using Online Learning for At-Risk Students and Credit Recovery, published by the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL), is part of its Promising Practices in Online Learning series. NACOL reports that online learning is growing at a rate of 30% annually and that thirty states currently offer online courses. While many CBL/Online Learning companies are well established (10 years old), many new ventures are building upon their experiences. Of the many types of online programs (full-time, supplemental, state-led, district-level, and consortium), CLRN currently only reviews one of them (supplemental). This must change if we are to remain relevant to our customers. While far from reaching critical mass, computer-based learning is continuing its march towards a tipping point. CLRN needs to be positioned to meet customer needs once they decide to investigate these services.

The Promising Practices series includes papers on Blended Learning, the convergence of online and face-to-face learning, Using Online Learning for Credit Recovery and At-Risk Students, Oversight and Management of Online Programs, and Socialization in Online Programs.

The NACOL report begins by echoing Christensen’s thesis about how this disruptive innovation is currently meeting the needs of nonconsumers:

Online learning programs are designed to expand high-quality educational opportunities and to meet the needs of diverse students. While the primary reason online courses are offered in school districts is to expand offerings to courses that would otherwise be unavailable, the second most commonly cited reason for offering online learning is to meet individual student needs, according to a survey done by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Using Online Learning for At-Risk Students and Credit Recovery highlights several online learning programs, including Florida Virtual School (FLVS) where self-paced credit recovery programs are delivered by a state institution.Cindy Lohan of FLVS reported that “…online learning gives students seeking credit recoery the individual attention they need to be successful.”

The revolution is not being televised, but is slowing gaining momentum. Its strength is that it is meeting the needs of nonconsumers while gaining a foothold in more schools. With many more start-ups beginning to CBL services, how can schools determine whether a program is high quality? More on a US Department of Education report, “Evaluating Online Learning: Challenges and Strategies for Success” tomorrow.

computer-based learning, disrupting class, disruptive innovation, Christensen, Bridges