The Washington Post, New York Times, and WSJ published articles in the past month about virtual school providers. The primary provider is K12, located in Northern Virginia. Tom Ashbrook, on his On Point radio show, also covered this topic with his usual finesse in trying to show all sides of the issue. Diane Rhem just produced a show looking at how well our higher education system is functioning in the US, looking at for-profit online providers as well. So, whether you have a long holiday drive or some downtime during the holidays, check the links to the articles and podcasts at the end of this post.

I continue to look for all the information I can find to decipher what is working and not working regarding virtual learning providers. As a curriculum designer and teacher who has been using a blended learning environment in my teaching for many years, I understand how much curriculum development work is needed to create a learning community for online students. Just as we want project-based, collaborative learning driven by students’ questions and curiosity in our regular classrooms, we must put in the extra design time to create learning activities that involve collaboration and engagement for our online students to stretch their minds to the highest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

While it is good when topics we discuss in the blogosphere make it to the mainstream, it is taking my best information literacy skills to work through the following articles and podcasts to get at the facts. I have many questions for companies like K12, Kaplan, Connections Education, etc., and I would love to see some of their units of study to see how they build community for their learners.

WP article

NYT article

WSJ article

Tom Ashbrook podcast

Diane Rehm podcast