That is interesting, enrolement just keeps growing like wild at the bricks and mortar universities, people crawling all over each other to get in. Enrolement is headed back up in public schools.

I guess they haven’t noticed yet.

Doug, repeating myths again, and not keeping up with the news.

University enrolment is decreasing in Canada, and that is ordinary Canadians. However, the good news, if one can call it good news, the universities has filled the niche, by opening their doors to the international students. You know the wealthy ones, who have no troubles paying double the tuition. Apparently Canada is not the only countries with the decreasing numbers of the native-born students in their respective countries. who are not enrolling in university for a number of reasons, including costs.

Enrolment in public schools will not be going up any time nor as you indicated or implied, unless the birth rate triples in the next 10 years. Doubtful, even the immigrants are adapting their values to have less children.

However e-learning will be expanding. The MIT free e-learning courses is just the tipped of the iceberg, to catered to the needs of their citizens, where learning and updating one’s skills no longer needs to be contained within a brick and mortar school.

” An electronics course, beginning in March, will be the first prototype of an online project, known as MITx.

The interactive course is designed to be fully automated, with successful students receiving a certificate.

The US university says it wants MITx to “shatter barriers to education”.

This ground-breaking scheme represents a significant step forward in the use of technology to deliver higher education.”

Imagine having a MIT certificate on one’s resume.

“An increasing number of universities have been making lectures and resources available online. The iTunes U service, which is the academic version of iTunes, has more than 500,000 lectures available for free download. The Open University and Stanford have had more than 40 million downloads.”

And where does Canada universities stand? No where close to the MITs and Standfords of the rest of the world. A closed shop.

E-LO courses have been offered by our board for several years now.  Widely-spaced population, declining enrollment and tight budgets have meant that we have resorted to this form of instruction.  I’ve been taking online courses at universities for many years.  They are a great way for someone living out in the boonies to continue their education.

Mind you, I am an adult, I have three university degrees and I am a highly motivated learner.  The same cannot be said for your average teenager.  Our experience shows that only about one in 10 successfully complete a credit in this manner.  I would also remind you that the board receives the same per pupil funding for these online credits as for bricks and mortar credits.  I thought the whole point of the Drummond report was to save money - let’s offer more of these courses and what you will see is that the ‘victory lap’ will only be the beginning of these students’ journey to a diploma.

Before all of you jump all over me for being one of the ‘usual suspects’, let me tell you that I have taught a student in this method and he was successful.  Mind you, his mother was one of my colleagues and she made sure he did his homework.  Furthermore, I don’t actually know what you mean by the ‘usual suspects’.  Teachers will still have a job with E-LO courses, they don’t care if they are in front of a keyboard or a blackboard.  In fact, most teachers look at the courses as ‘plums’ - all the students - none of the behaviour problems.  Who do you think will run these courses, mark the assignments and tests, and so?

Wayne, this is very interesting. Are you sure that the board receives the same per-pupil funding for online credits? This is very surprising to me, because I thought it would be more economical to offer online courses. After all, overhead is greatly reduced, and surely online teachers can teach more kids than regular classroom teachers. Or can’t they? If not, why not.

And, by the way, I do take your point about motivation being a problem.

Wayne, you also omitted the quality and restrictions place on the high school students accessing the public education e-learning courses, as well as restricting the behaviour of students taking the on-line courses. If a student remains quiet, a sign of disengagement, and perhaps being kicked off the computer for not participating. As for the quality, that is questionable when students are not allow to manipulate the virtual reality according to their learning styles and needs. One of the reasons why my child hates the public K to 12 on-line learning, is the inability to manipulate the virtual reality, as well as not having access 24-7.

Restricting on-line learning to the school hours, have a tendency not to have students being successful in on-line e-learning. By placing restrictions on how the students access e-learning is not great for motivating students, nor when it is an attempt to produce the identical classroom environment, that restricts students to learn a define set of objectives and call it a day.

Malkin,

I’ve messed up on funding numbers before - so I’ll be very cautious about what I say.  I cannot find a quick answer for you.  As far as I know, it is the same.  In fact, I believe boards have received EXTRA funding to set up these delivery systems.  You’d have to ask someone closer to the Board office than I.  I do know that three years ago, we suddenly got a new E-LO teacher working out of the board office and that on top of the fact that the students actually taking the courses were attached to classes and regular teachers.  This new position was supervisory only.

As far as the number of students, I believe that I have already answered some of that - one teacher can only mark so many assignments and tests.  Furthermore, someone has to be paid to proctor those students taking tests.  These students could be all over the place - there may only be one in any given town - so we have to hire someone to proctor one student?  Pretty rich staffing, I’d say.  When I took classes online, numbers/teacher tend to plummet as soon as it becomes a credit course.  I’ve taken online tutorials before - no actual teacher involved, but the tutorials do not lead to any certificate or diploma.  Therefore, they have one set of readings and one set test that the computer can mark.

As soon as diplomas and degrees are involved, the situation becomes radically different:  we want to ensure that students learn online exactly what they would have learned in the classroom; we want to make sure that they are actually doing the work (and not let someone else do it for them); we want to make sure it is the real student writing the test, and so on. This is no different than any of a hundred different proposals to improve education that I have heard in my time - most of them from the Ministry.  Every one of them touted a great new system, but no one stops to think about the practical problems.

One of he American problems they have noticed is that the students most likely to sign up for on-line HS credits are the couch potatoes (alienated youth sorry) who can’t be bothered to make it to school. “School is boring man-I’m going to stay home play video games, smoke some weed and take an on-line course.”

As a result it has a high failure (sorry non-completion) rate.

The “good kids” (sorry privledged) somehow make it to the bricks and mortar school daily.

“Wayne, this is very interesting. Are you sure that the board receives the same per-pupil funding for online credits? This is very surprising to me, because I thought it would be more economical to offer online courses. After all, overhead is greatly reduced, and surely online teachers can teach more kids than regular classroom teachers. Or can’t they? If not, why not.”

I’d like to find out more about this also, because if boards receive the same per-pupil funding for on-line students, they should NOT, and I think Wayne’s found McGuinty another place to save money.

Wayne makes some solid points

online is a tool not an end and not neutral

it can be done well or badly.

I designed an online course and have been a consultant for others teaching these courses.
I also reviewed a book looking at these world wide, from rural Ontario in western China

Some courses and their instructors are better than others.
Dealing with learners in dispersed and remote locations is a plus

Two issues
- online cannot totally replicate F2F (face to face) especially if you go beyond the basics (online learning can be REALLY GOOD at this if well designed with motivated learners)
- too easy to set up assignments to meet a mandated number of hours, regardless of the quality of learning attained (that is the centralized bureaucratic thing).

So if we think that this is a magic bullet? sorry

I think the suggestion was not to entirely replace the regular school with online learning, but to use virtual schooling for those students who may want to upgrade. It would replace that “victory lap” expense.  John M. you are absolutely right, good quality teaching designed for the “tool” will still be essential for success.

Nancy,

Our board uses the same online system that I have used at online universities - Moodle.  As such, it is available 24/7.  Students can log in and work at any time.  After using this tool for one of the courses I was teaching, I would have to say that it works well for handing out materials and assignments as well as handing assignments in and testing.  Where it fails is in the personal interaction as John has pointed out.

Our young people are immersed in a texting universe - ever try to talk to a teenager at the dinner table without text interruptions?   They are in a constant, virtual ‘party’ (conversation?) with their friends.  My students seemed to expect that when they signed up for an on-line course, they were going to get access to me 24/7.  Teenagers need constant and immediate feedback and are easily frustrated when they don’t get it.

Again, as far as funding is concerned, I can only tell you what our board does:  they either create an online class of let’s say:  Grade 12 Physics, or they attach students to a class in another building (where they have enough students to offer Grade 12 physics) and the student accesses the course materials via Moodle.  The Ministry transcript makes no distinction between delivery modes - a credit is a credit - a student is a student.  The E-LO courses are also subject to the same contract provisions as regular classes:  if the absolute maximum number of students in a Grade 12 Physics class is 33, then they cannot enroll 34 students in an E-LO course just because it is online.

“The E-LO courses are also subject to the same contract provisions as regular classes”

This is exactly the obstacle that Dr. Paul Bennett discussed in our SQE paper The Sky Has Limits.

Would it not be possible to create an online course that minimized the role of individual teachers? You know, as the Khan Academy does (http://www.khanacademy.org/). What about videos of exemplary teachers teaching the lesson, followed by online exercises that become progressively more difficult as the learner masters the content?

Because where is the fun in technology if we can’t create some unemployed teachers in the process.

The teachers are out signing contracts that maintain all of the same staffing ratios in virtual schools.

We have not yet reached the point that the computers ceate their own lessons and grade their own papers.

“Unsupervised” many teeanagers will sit and do nothing as the virtual ed people are rapidly finding out.

Two types of e-learning in the NL system,

One is independent studies - access 24-7 but access to teacher on-line is restricted to a few hours in the day.

The other type is restricted at the school, where students are monitor, and instruction is exactly the same as in the classroom. Missed the class, the students does not have access to the class lesson to review and catch up at home or in the school setting.

Sure most public education e-learning allows access to the notes, assignments and other related materials of the course, 24-7, but the students cannot access and view the missed classes. Unlike the private e-learning, where it is schedule within a time frame. If a student misses the e-class, they can review the missed class 24-7, minus the interaction with the teacher. Ditto for e-learning conducted by universities,

Hardly seems fail, since the class lessons are already in digital format, and there is a cost attached to e-learning in producing the e-class lesson. Why have the lessons sit in a file, when it can be simply be edited for all students, whether they are sitting in the class or taking it on line? 

Restrictions, that turns the advantages of e-learning for the learner into the same environment of the regular classroom, will guarantee to produce mediocre results, when students cannot manipulate their e-learning environment, and not being allow to view previous classes of e-learning 24-7.

When I started to subscribed to 2 e-learning sites beginning at the last half of grade 4 for my child, it was a common sight to see her on the sites, when she should have been in bed asleep. My point is that e-learning, and the advantages encourages and motivated my child in learning and she became engaged with her learning, and how she learns. Nobody was telling her when, how and in what where she could access the e-learning. Bonus, she did not have to raise her hand to asked questions, because she could always go back to review any time 24-7.

Today, my child is sure that she would have a difficult time, using on-line learning provided by the education system because of the restrictions. And she would not certainly be engaged or motivated either, and the teacher at the school, assigned to the e-students, would be doing a lot more than simply monitoring the students.

No wonder the naysayers in e-learning can always state with the truth, that achievement of students are lower than students in the classroom. With all the restrictions, one doesn’t have to wonder why students are the way there are. Throw in poorly designed e-learning environments, than the proponents of e-learning can state the sad truth, the reality is the stakeholders within the public education are determined to wipe out the advantages of e-learning, to carry out the many agendas and interests at the expense of the students.

The Ontario Virtual High School, is an example that all public education e-learning should follow. I bet the costs of tuition of one e-learning high school credit, is far cheaper than the cost per student in the public education e-learning. Placing restrictions on e-learning raises the costs, especially the kind that restricts e-learning to the contracts of the regular classes. No wonder the Ontario Virtual High School is seeing climbing enrolment every year, and I have not heard or read a nasty word of dissatisfied parents, nor with the parents who have children with their learning struggles.

And now there is talk about limited the number of credits that a high school student can obtained, to prevent the victory lap. How? By reducing the number of credits required for a diploma. I immediate thought of the students who take extra courses online, on their own time and expense, and do so for credits as well as courses not available at the high school level. The talk came from the Drummond report, but it won’t solve the victory lap by limiting the number of credits a student can received. But opening up e-learning and access to e-learning, will do a lot more to end the victory lap and perhaps raise achievement levels.

“Would it not be possible to create an online course that minimized the role of individual teachers? You know, as the Khan Academy does (http://www.khanacademy.org/). What about videos of exemplary teachers teaching the lesson, followed by online exercises that become progressively more difficult as the learner masters the content?”

The Virtual High School is doing it too Malkin.  So, if the private virtual schools can do it, I’m pretty sure that the e-learning gurus in the public sector can too….but they will not, and we know why.

Chuck,

Already asked and answered - I did say that E-LO courses had about a 10% success rate - I did say that it won’t help your victory lap problem, only extend it.  Teachers view these positions a plum jobs - go ahead, create as many as you want - the taxpayers will be on the hook for these kids until they are 21.  Even throwing in the Khan Academy and the Virtual High School won’t help.  I speak to the odd teenager or two during the day.  I have never heard one raving about the wonders of the Khan Academy - only the people here. 

Again, you need to understand that we see a different clientele than your family.  By being here, you already show more interest than the average parent - and I suspect that your children are doing well in school - one follows from the other.  What teachers see in high school is also about a 90% apathy rate.  I teach about 140 students/year - I see about one dozen parents on parent/teacher nights in any given year - that is an 85% apathy rate, any wonder E-LO stats are so low?

Heck, keep pushing for it, the ‘usual suspects’ as you like to call them will love you for it:  increased taxes, increased spending, greater need for teachers (the numbers in remedial classes/Spec Ed/Student Success are always lower - in other words, you haven’t thought what happens to the 90% that fail), jobs created, and on and on.

online is a method based on some tools
it is not a goal of schooling
and the jury is still out its effectiveness

Let me recommend a book written in the mid 1990s that may still apply
Edward Landower (vp at Bell Labs then) The Trouble with Computers.

and i speak as one with more than 30 experience using them

Wayne - wow, you’re making a lot of assumptions in your post aren’t you? What clientele do you assume my family represents?

E-learning offers a choice, or should, to both students, parents and yes, even educators. 

Even the most apathetic deserve choice. Traditional schooling is just not for all students.

I can be as apathetic as the next person given reason and continued lack of motivation and choice.

Oh my Wayne, throwing darts at parents?

Or just having a bad day?

Small high schools under 250 = high parental engagement + two-way communication

Last week, the students who failed the mid-terms and failing subjects for the second report period, were informed last week, just ahead of the parents being informed. Parent interviews already booked for all students with failing grades, well ahead of the parent interviews whose children are passing.  But still Wayne, I decided I am going next week, and two hours of my time to see what can be fine tune for my child. Small high schools, have some major advantages, but its a real pity that the powers eschewed small schools to big schools, where no teacher has a chance to get to know their students, and parents are left out in the cold dealing with a cold bureaucracy of the public education system.

The e-learning achievement rate is higher in the small high schools of the NL kind. But the very reason could be, e-learning is only when the course is not available at the school level, and the limit is 10 students per e-course and school. My 16 year old will be taking an e-learning independent study course next year. a writing course that is part of the provincial requirements. She will have access 24-7, and since there is no final exams or mid-terms, the point of this course,  is to work on the improvement of writing. I signed off the paper on course selection, once I heard the teacher assigned to monitor the student of one. I have no worries, because the teacher will rolled up his sleeves, and go after the deficits in my child’s writing. I am hoping for another jump in overall improvement in my child’s writing, where writing demand pieces will no long taxed her in producing a piece of writing.

My point is, small high schools often have high parental engagement, because the teachers and the school staff have the time to studied the individual students and their learning deficits and strengths.And the teachers do wish to see e-learning more open to the students, where access is 24-7. Nice to have, if students need a lot more practice beyond the classroom work. Khan Academy, among other excellent free e-learning resources are used widely by the local students, as well as tutoring each other online through social networks. Collaboration may not happen in the classroom with the students, but it certainly happens on the social networks. Just last week, my 16 year old taught another classmate who is struggling in math, and he finally pulled a 85 on a math unit test. And in turned, he filled in the physics gaps that my 16 year old was missing. And she tutored him on the physics math.

Restrictions in how students’ learned, always will impact achievement. Restricting e-learning and its technology at the school level, will not lead to open collaboration on the social networks teaching and learning off each other, of their own choosing and time.

As for parents in my local area, the social-economic status doesn’t even cropped up at the high school level with the teachers, as the blame factor for failing. After all, they are too busy addressing the foundation deficits of the 3 Rs, that should have been taught at the grade school level. And where e-learning and its technology takes on an important role to addressed the foundation deficits.

Re-reading the posts on this thread I can see where we fail to communicate.  Proponents are assuming that students are highly motivated individuals.  Doug has already stated (if somewhat politically incorrectly), that the highly motivated students are able to find and participate in their bricks and mortar classes everyday - they don’t need online courses (with some exceptions for declining enrollments limiting course offerings at their school).

The students that are being pushed into these courses (by principals, guidance and/or student success) are the ones with 40, 50, 60 absences or more out of 89 classes.  In other words, the students taking these classes are the ones least likely to be able to cope.  So, good luck to thinking, “What about videos of exemplary teachers teaching the lesson, followed by online exercises that become progressively more difficult as the learner masters the content?”  As soon as it gets difficult, these students shut down - and the success rate of these courses prove it.

Personally, I have never supported setting up students for failure - and that is exactly what is being proposed here.  John has made some excellent points about online courses being a tool - and that is all.  You keep going on as if this were some magic panacea.  “If hopes and dreams were horses; beggars would ride.”

The assumption being made is that motivated student and the unmotivated students aren’t choosing these classes of their own free will and because they offer something that appeals to them.

“The students that are being pushed into these courses (by principals, guidance and/or student success) are the ones with 40, 50, 60 absences or more out of 89 classes”

Perhaps that is your own experience at your school but it’s sure not mine. The supports are there in our high school for any student who wishes to, to take an on-line course. Some do it out of necessity to grab a course NOT offered in 4th year because they want to graduate in 4 years and not come back for a 5th year.

You’re really making uncharacteristically sweeping generalizations.

Looking at the positions by Wayne and Chuck on the benefits of online work would be to seek evidence from provincial authorities to answer questions like
- what are the characteristics of those taking ion line courses (used to be hard copy mail in correspondence courses)? are they as Wayne suggests?
- what is the success rate / dropout rate of those taking these courses?
- are these rates different between those taking courses to “catch up” or
those taking them to “fast track” or those taking them to fill in curriculum gaps in the local school?

I have partial answers to a couple of these but I think others should investigate.
I would not want people to commit the “genetic” fallacy” because of what I say.

BTW
The genetic fallacy occurs when you accept or reject what one says based on who they are rather than the evidentiary strength of their position. Seems to happen on blogs way too often.

Good luck on that one. Education authorities, whether ministry or board, are less incline to track and published numbers, that are best left buried.

Sure would love to see other numbers besides e-learning, emerge from the BLOB.

About the old-guard educators protecting their turf versus the nouveau-guard educators.

To which I learned something today, the nouveau-guard educators in my corner of the woods, are in the same camp as I am. E-learning and its technology is being used in all kinds of places concerning the SE students, determined to raise achievement, as well as improving core reading and writing deficits.

I never thought in my wildest dreams, what should have been done in the primary grades, is now being done in the senior high school for my child. And in the course of the conversation, e-learning and its technology came up as one of the tools that is part and parcel of correcting reading and writing deficits.

Perhaps e-learning is not a tsunami, but an unrelenting wind inside the BLOB?

Chuck, John:

I am fully cognizant of the fact that e-learning is not working well in our Board, does not mean that it isn’t working well elsewhere.  Like John and others, I would like to see the real numbers first.  I have noted some boards are advertising their programs to the public.  One even boasts an 80% attrition rate (NB:  not even close to success rate - it merely means that 80% of the students who start also finish - it does not mean that they all finish successfully).

Malkin, another note on funding:

Here is a quote from the Ministry Website, “Students who are enrolled in e-learning courses as part of their regular day school program are to be recorded as either full-time or part-time in the day school enrolment register of the home school in the same manner as classroom delivered courses.”  In other words, as I suspected, these courses are counted as bricks and mortar courses and the board receives full funding for that student.

there’s nothing left to know about on-line learning. It’s a choice and it’s offering options to students who don’t need that box of a classroom.

Next up, to take advantage of choice:

http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120222/ontario-should-move-courses-online-120222/20120222?hub=TorontoNewHome

University on-line met with still resistance. Marginal approach. Education is a F2F contact sport.

Here is a quote from the Ministry Website, “Students who are enrolled in e-learning courses as part of their regular day school program are to be recorded as either full-time or part-time in the day school enrolment register of the home school in the same manner as classroom delivered courses.”  In other words, as I suspected, these courses are counted as bricks and mortar courses and the board receives full funding for that student.

Naturally this is the only way the unions would endorse it. It must generate just as much money and just as many jobs at the same rate.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june12/cyberschools_02-23.html