As I wrote a few years ago, the future for education is neither a fully virtual nor a parallel system, but an integrated one. The overwhelming majority of students will continue to attend physical schools. However, increasing numbers of students will also take courses or parts of courses online, moving back and forth seamlessly between the traditional and virtual—just as they do in every other aspect of their lives.
To see what this emerging future looks like, I recommend the Innosight Institute’s new brief describing the “blending” of online and traditional instruction. Pushing back against fears that online learning will replace teachers and leave classrooms empty, the piece flatly states that “full time virtual schooling will not substitute for mainstream schooling.” Instead, what they describe is much more interesting: a rapidly emerging sector with a wide variety of schools implementing at least six different models — all attempting to find the right combination of high tech and high touch teaching.
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5/11/2012 | U.S. News & World Report highlights ideas from "Moving On Up: How Tuition Tax Breaks Increasingly Favor the Upper-Middle Class." 
5/11/2012 | In Diverse, Steve Burd comments on the Obama administration's plans to address student debt. 
5/11/2012 | Kevin Carey talks to Salon about the government's role in rising student debt.
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Yes! A model for using tech in ed:
1. Choose learning goals
2. Figure out what tasks would best help students meet those goals
3. Help students complete the tasks – with tech, teachers, trips, whatever
It’s messy. The three steps are constrained and interdependent. But goals and learning tasks come first. Blended will come out on top in many cases, simply because different learning tasks are best done with different methods.
Imagine a cook saying, “We’re going to use butter and eggs. Now, what are we making?” That’s what happens when people say, “We’re doing this course online. Now, what are we teaching?”
Kieran
kieran@coredogs.com
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