Craft Category: Artifacts

What do strong policy and funding frameworks look like, and what specific benefits do they afford? Which online learning policy and funding structures hold promise for all modes of learning? This report lays the groundwork by creating frameworks for policy and funding development in online learning environments.

In at least 44 states across the country, students are logging in to learn at all times of the day and night—accessing courses they might otherwise be unable to take, interacting with students they might otherwise never know, and working with highly qualified teachers they otherwise could not access.

While the viability and popularity of online learning is gaining widespread acceptance, the policy needed to support its growth is lagging. The continued success and sustained growth of online learning requires state education policy frameworks to be adjusted.

Read this report now and explore promising practices for funding and policy development in your online learning environment.

Online learning is creating transformative change in today’s education system as states and districts create new online schools. This catalytic growth reflects the widespread understanding that online learning can serve a wide variety of students and needs. Many school leaders are excited about the possibilities of online learning, and this report seeks to address some of the major challenges faced by innovators, such as:

• Creating online courses.
• Finding, hiring, and managing online teachers.
• Supporting students in online learning environments.
• Managing technology.
• Evaluating programs to determine the level of success.

Read this report and learn from leaders who have years of experience operating online schools, developing and revising operations and management structures, and sift through examples of emerging promising practices.

To assist parents in choosing the right online program for their student, we offer this list of questions parents should use as a guide.

It is estimated that there are over one million K-12 enrollments in online courses across the country. The number of online courses and providers continues to grow at a steady rate each year (a staggering 30% annually), providing scores of options for today’s students.

With all of the benefits that online learning provides to students and their families, many parents find themselves unsure of where to turn or even what questions to ask when sorting through the various online learning options. View this guide to ensure you are asking the appropriate questions of online programs for your child.

The findings in this report represent Phase II of the Going Virtual! research series. In this report, we posed the question, “What are the unique needs and challenges of K‐12 online teachers?” The first phase of the Going Virtual! research series, conducted in 2007, investigated the national status of professional development for K‐12 online teachers.

Investigators in this study used an interpretive research design to identify the unique needs and challenges of K-12 online teachers. The findings provide practical information for policymakers to establish national and state standards for K-12 online teachers, as well as for trainers designing professional development programs.

Study this report to gain a deeper understanding of the unique needs and challenges of K-12 online teachers, as expressed by the teachers themselves.

Several virtual schools portray the mentoring structures they have implemented to assist their new online teachers. Each school’s mentoring program is unique – designed specifically for the school’s staff, size, and instructional approach.

These schools learned that successful mentoring programs are key in developing effective novice virtual teachers, as well as supporting the continued growth of all online teachers. Browse this report now to discover how effective mentoring programs can help everyone: mentees through skill and knowledge development, mentors through leadership and communication improvement, and schools through idea- and knowledge-sharing.

This report is iNACOL’s first systematic effort to examine K-12 distance education in Canada, and it has two main purposes: to examine Canada’s K-12 online learning activity, and to examine policies in each province and territory. Thus, this report provides a brief national overview of K-12 online learning, as well as a more detailed focus on three specific jurisdictions. Review this report to discover how K-12 online learning has quietly developed across Canada.

How can online programs enhance students’ social development? Here, educators demonstrate creative ways to break down barriers of time and place to enhance student socialization. As part of the Promising Practices in Online Learning series, this report addresses the following socialization issues in online programs:

• Interaction with a teacher or other adults within the online class.
• Communication with other students within the online class.
• Online communication and activities facilitated by the school but outside of class activities.
• Activities that involve bringing students together in physical locations.
• Social networks and Web 2.0 technologies.

Browse this article to see how online schools are exposing students to differing views and perspectives, enabling students to think for themselves and effectively handle new situations.

K-12 online learning is increasing access and equity by making high-quality courses and highly qualified teachers available to students everywhere. As one of six papers in the Promising Practices in Online Learning series, this report seeks to respond to key issues that arise when online learning targets at-risk students and credit recovery. By taking a personalized, student-centered online learning approach, educators can engage at-risk students, opening up new pathways to success. Read this report to review case studies and innovative means to incorporate online learning in credit recovery for at-risk students.

The rise of the Internet tremendously increased the quality of digital classroom resources, and schools and districts today are combining online learning with face-to-face instruction, called blended learning. By combining the very best elements of online and face-to-face learning, author John Watson argues that blended learning will emerge as the predominant education model of the future. This report was designed to answer the following 5 questions:

• How does blended learning fit into current conceptions of online learning?
• How does blended learning help engage students and support their academic success?
• How are online learning and face-to-face instruction being combined effectively?
• Is blended learning meeting unique student needs that neither fully online nor face-to-face models can achieve?
• What digital content and curricula are being used in blended learning?

Read this report to explore some of the outstanding models of blended learning in use today, as well as lessons learned and recommendations for development, implementation and analysis.

Online education is one of the fastest growing phenomena in K-12 education in the United States today. Over half of states currently have some form of state-run virtual school, with additional state programs in the planning stage. Various surveys have reported that at least one third of high school students have had some form of online education experience (Selzer and Lewis 2005, Allen and Seaman 2006).

The focus of this issue brief is to increase the awareness of the importance of making online courses accessible to meet legal obligations. This brief references U.S. civil rights legislation, but the issues of access and equity are relevant to all online programs.

Additionally, this brief highlights the importance of collecting and disaggregating enrollment and completion data by race, national origin, gender, language proficiency, and disability. Read more to discover how to make online programs more accessible and ensure all students have access to the educational opportunities provided by your program.