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Online Schools: the Changing Face of K12 Student Learning |
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With each decade the face of education has changed to reflect the current trends
in education. The policy initiatives of each president, governor, community
leader and parent have been aimed at transforming children's learning
environments into the ideal situation. While these initiatives may never succeed
to meet every child's needs the combined result of their work has created an
environment where education can now be tailored to meet the needs of every child
through online schools.
Much like the advent of the search engine and
booking our own airline travel, the Internet has introduced the nation to online
education. To many, the commercial products available from higher education
degree granting giants like the University of Phoenix define online learning.
However, to a growing population of Americans, online schools have come to
define the middle ground between home schooling and personalized public
education.
While charter schools continue to spring up across the
country, there are a select few that have been created in the charter school
mold simply because the education establishment can not keep pace with today's
innovations. In Ohio for example, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT)
was created in 2000 not to revolutionize charter schools, but to bring to Ohio's
children and families leading education content in a format designed to enable
every child to succeed. ECOT provides every child with an education option that
delivers to each student exactly what they need while providing the
comprehensive state standards based education that is the hallmark of successful
public and private schools.
Other online schools and content companies
such as the Florida Virtual Academy and K12 Education are part of a growing
trend that brings together the real-life education community and the technology
community. In many instances this partnership is a thorn in the side of
traditional education and educators who see only standard classrooms as the
answer to the ills of the American k-12 system
Online schools have
revolutionized the workplace for skilled teachers and administrators. The result
of this union is the ability to create a tailored classroom for gifted,
struggling and needs-based students that, until the advent of online learning,
were often segregated to specialty teaching groups to meet their potential.
The education landscape has changed and for many brick and mortar school
districts this is a hard fact to face. The local school boards and education
departments in America have begun to realize that business as usual isn't he
solution to a rapidly advancing world and have begun to embrace the assets of
online education.
Unlike the as-we-know-it classroom the online
environment can be adjusted to meet the needs of every child and instill the
state standards required of students since the advent of the No Child Left
Behind Act without stagnating the classroom experience. From thousands of
courses to graduation test practice sessions and immediate intervention
opportunities, online schools offers to the students and families of 2006 what
the computer breakthroughs of the past several decades offered to the business
community. Simply put, online schools have the ability to provide every
individual with the right information in the right format at the right time for
optimal success.
Online schools were once considered the wave of the
future. That future is now and the online revolution continues to shape the
world of real life education without the boundaries of classroom walls.
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