RSA#4 The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning and Chicago virtual school: We ignite your child’s mind.

RSA#4 The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning  and Chicago virtual school: We ignite your child’s mind.

By Chris Bohula

Online Source 1: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewArticle/607/1182

Online Source 2: http://www.k12.com/cvcs/

This week’s reading in Palloff & Pratt (2007, p67-155) the discussion moves from student considerations of online learning to steps to consider in making the transition from face to face to online learning.  One of the first and largest concerns one should consider is time.  Time and time constraints affect both the teacher and student.  In fact, according to Pallof & Pratt (2007, p 74), a teacher can expect to dedicate 3 times the amount time compared to a regular face to face class. Another major point I believe Pallof & Pratt make is you can’t take a course taught face to face and simply put it online.(2007, p129)  But rather, start from scratch and develop objectives and then use the pedagogy of the online class model to create strategies/activities to reach those objectives.

In K-12 Online Learning: A survey of U.S. School District Administrators Anthony Picciano and Jeff Seaman (Picciano, & Seaman, 2007) explore current examples of online learning.  They present data comparing the statistical occurrences of different types of online learning and the results of a survey administered to school personal regarding online learning.  Although this survey provides information on the types, reasons for use, and beliefs about online learning, it does not provide any empirical data showing its effectiveness.

This week I looked at two online resources.  One, Research and Practice in K-12 Online Learning: A Review of Open Access Literature (C. Cavanaugh, M. , & T. Clark, 2009) was a review of studies from the past two decades on the topic of distance and online learning. It described a shift in literature for comparing distance learning to traditional learning in the 1990’s to more recently defining on-line learning and explaining the benefits.  It also states there is a very limited amount of empirical data and identifies areas for future studies (p. 7). In this respect, it very closely echoes what Picciano & Seaman (2007) presented two years earlier.  The second online resource was the Chicago Virtual Charter School website. This online resource is an actual blended format charter school available free to Chicago Public School children.  This website provides a great deal of information about their online charter school format, experience and expectations.

After reviewing the multiple FAQ pages on Chicago Virtual School website it was easy to see how some of the issues/characteristics of online learning are addressed.  First is the issue of time commitment.  According to the website  a student should expect to spend the same amount of time in the “virtual school” as a regular school and is expected to “attend” at least the state required 180 days per school year.  However, it also states on its general FAQ page, (http://www.k12.com/cvcs/faqs_general/), that a student in the early grades will spend no more than 30% of the time on the computer.  According to C. Cavanaugh, M. Barbour & T. Clark (2009) this would be defined more as distance learning rather than online learning.  In the earlier grades, most of the material seems to be delivered using textbooks and the online component seems to be for practice and assessment.  However, this doesn’t seem to entirely the case because the website references interactions between students online when addressing socialization concerns for this school.  Again, according to the General FAQ webpage, Chicago Virtual School also provides socialization through required weekly meetings in a brick and mortar school building, field trips, and parent relationships that develop among students within close physical locations.  Chicago Virtual School looks to be a good example of how technology can be integrated to create a blended format online education.  Not only does it appear to be blended format by Palloff & Pratt (2007) terms of face to face and online but also a blended format in Cavanaugh, Barbour & Clark (2009) terms of both online and distance learning.

Resources

Cavanaugh, C. S., Barbour, M. K., & Clark, T. (2009). Research and practice in k-12 online learning: a review of open access literature. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(1), Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewArticle/607/1182 doi: 1492-3821

Chicago Virtual Charter School. (2010). Chicago virtual school: We ignite your child’s mind. Retrieved from: http://www.k12.com/cvcs/

Palloff, Rena M. and Pratt, Keith. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom (pp. 67-155). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Picciano, A. G., & Seaman, J. (2007). K-12 online learning: A survey of u.s. school district administrators. United States of America: Sloan-C. Retrieved from http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/pdf/K-12_Online_Learning.pdf