Online Learning: A Global Perspective
Allison Powell, Vice President
International Association for
K-12 Online Learning
International Association for K-12
Online Learning (iNACOL)
• iNACOL is the premier K-12 nonprofit in online learning
• 2500+ members in K-12 virtual schools and online
learning
• Provides leadership, advocacy, research, training, and
networking with experts in K-12 online learning.
• “Ensure every student has access to the best education
available regardless of geography, income or
background.”
• Conference – Virtual School Symposium (VSS):
“Creating New Solutions Through Online Learning” in
Austin, TX on November 15-17, 2009
iNACOL Policy Lens
 Every Student’s Right to Online Learning
Opportunity
 Online learning is emerging as an essential part of
the K-12 education landscape. To meet their
educational goals and secure their future as active
and productive citizens, K-12 students must have
access to quality online learning opportunities in a
variety of forms that meet their needs…
 iNACOL therefore will endeavor through its
advocacy and policy activities to ensure that all
students have the opportunity to choose an online
learning course or program that meets their needs
as part of their K-12 education.
World Future Society
The Futurist: Top 10 Breakthroughs Transforming
Life over the next 20-30 years
Best forecast data ever assembled
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Alternative energy
Desalination of water
Precision farming
Biometrics
Quantum computers
Entertainment on demand
Global access
Virtual education or distance learning
Nanotechnology
Smart Robots
Offering Academic Options
 Provides educational options to students unavailable at
local school
 Provides equal access to educational opportunities
regardless of location, socio-economic status, etc.
 Allows for scheduling flexibility (Students have access
24-7 from any Internet-connected computer.)
 Provides an NCLB highly qualified teacher in every
classroom
 Meets the specialized needs of students
(hospital/homebound, special education, student
athletes, etc.)
 Personalizes education to address specific learning styles
and student educational needs
 Multiple assessment types
 Content differentiation
Do All Students Have Access to the
Highest Quality Education?
Virtual Schools offer:
• Access to Courses Otherwise Unavailable (#1 USED study)
• Online learning to Meet Individual Student Needs (#2)
• “Advanced Diploma” Courses
• Additional Course Offerings
– Advanced Placement, IB or Dual Enrollment/Credit Courses
– Math & Science Courses
– Foreign Languages
•
•
•
•
•
Remedial courses and credit recovery
Excellent teachers/Highly Qualified Teachers
Multimedia/technology Tools to enhance instruction
Customization and personalization; individualized pacing
Tailored learning and access to more educational content and
resources
Providing Opportunities to All
Students
Traditional
Public/Private
Accelerated
Students
Credit Recovery
Need to work and/or
support family
Medically Fragile
Home Schoolers
Special Education
and ELL
Aspiring athletes and
performers
National Perspective
National Online Learning Facts
• 34 states have state virtual schools (Keeping Pace 2008)
• 44 states have significant state policies (KP 2007)
• 21 states allow 200 full-time virtual charter schools with over
150,000 students (CER)
• 30% of all employers use e-learning for training, in 5 years it will be
50%
• 1 in 5 undergraduate and graduate student enrolls in an online
course in higher education
• More than 70% of school districts in the United States offer online
courses to students (QED, America’s Digital Schools 2006)
• More universities are offering K-12 courses online
– MIT open courseware for K-12 students
• K-12 Online Learning enrollments growing 30% annually nationwide
with over 1,030,000 in 2007-2008
Michigan Online Learning
HS Graduation Requirement
• First state to require “online learning” in 2006
• In new requirements: “every student must have an
online learning experience or course” before
graduating from high school
• Why? Need for online learning is greatest with
students to access skills they will need to get ahead
and compete in an increasingly technological
workplace
• The guidelines:
– “Take an online course, or
– Participate in an online experience (accumulation of 20 hours),
or
– Participate in online experiences incorporated in to each of the
required credit courses of the Michigan Merit Curriculum
State Snapshot: Florida
• Growth and Sustainable Funding
– 100,000 enrollments in Florida Virtual School
(statewide supplemental online program)
– 1/6 FTE; performance funding based on completion,
not seat time
– Set up as a separate LEA (school district)
– No student may be denied access to online learning
– 2007 Florida Tax Watch Report:
•
•
•
•
Students academically performed better
Served higher population of underserved students
New standard of accountability
Better use of tax payer dollars with results
State Snapshot: Wisconsin
• Lawsuit challenged full-time online schools over
funding and role of teachers and parents
• Online schools were threatened with closing and
losing all funding
• Legislature heard from students, parents, teachers,
responded by updating law and changing the
definitions in the education code to explicitly allow
online schools
State Trends: New Mexico
• IDEAL-New Mexico (PK-20)
– Statewide eLearning system that from its inception
encompasses all aspects of learning from traditional public
and higher education environments to teacher professional
development, continuing education and workforce
education.
– Statewide eLearning delivery system for P-12, higher
education, and state agencies.
– Provide online courses that supplement the curricular
offerings of New Mexico schools.
– Creation of a statewide eLearning Service Center for P-12,
higher education, and state agencies to support the use of
the shared eLearning delivery system via the LMS.
Alabama ACCESS
• $30M over 3 years: upgrade network, 21st century
classrooms, train teachers, invest in content
• Goal: To deliver high quality courses to students statewide via
online learning
• Alabama Supercomputer Authority (ASA) is the networking
technology partner for the ACCESS project
• Funding 21st century classrooms using online learning
• ACCESS students: Chinese, French, German and Latin;
advanced placement (AP) calculus, AP English literature and
composition, AP macroeconomics, and marine science are
courses now available
• "Using technology to provide those opportunities not only
increases the rigor of instruction, but it also acclimates
students to the use of technology and prepares them for a
21st century workforce.” -Governor Riley
Distance Education at DegreeGranting Postsecondary Institutions:
• 56% of all 2-year and 4-year institutions offer elearning courses
• 127,000 online courses offered (2000-2001)
• 90% use asynchronous Internet based courses
• 51% use two-way interactive videoconferencing
• In 2008, Sloan Consortium reports that there
are approximately 4 million college students are
currently enrolled in fully online courses.
International Perspective
International Trends in Online
Learning
• Results of the iNACOL International Survey
– 2006, 15 countries responded
– 2009, sent to over 100 countries
International Trends
• Turkey: 0-15 million students in K-12 taking
online courses in 3 years
• South Korea Virtual School
• Hong Kong – Continuity in case of disasters
• Mexico:
– Digitized curriculum for all schools
– K-12 academic content online
– all teachers trained to use online content
Canada
• All thirteen provinces and territories have
some level of K-12 distance education
activity.
• Two provinces make sole use of a single,
province-wide K-12 distance education
programme
• four provinces rely primarily upon districtbased programmes
• four provinces have a combination of a
strong province-wide programme and
several district-based programmes
India
• India:
– Universal Access for K-12 Education in 10
years
– Need 200,000 more schools
– Shortage of good teachers
– “Leverage teachers using technology to
bring to scale”
– Educomp Program digitizing learning
resources (online content) in K-12
education
• View as export opportunity
China
• China: 1.3 billion people
• Digitized K-12 curriculum
• Training Master Teachers to teach
online
• With online learning: increase
educational opportunities to 100
million new students
“Web opens world for young
Chinese . . .”
-Christian Science Monitor, May 14, 2007

Bejing -- “Excited and emboldened by the wealth of
information they find on the Internet, Chinese teens
are breaking centuries of tradition to challenge their
teachers and express their opinions in class. . . .”

“Students at Tianjin’s No. 1 Middle School are
encouraged to challenge their history texts.”

“The Internet has given Chinese children wings,”
says Sun Yun Xiao, vice president of the China
Youth and Children’s Research Center.

137 million online in China at the end of 2006 (in
1999 there were just 4 million connections in China)

87% of urban youth in China use the Internet
How will they scale innovation with
limited Internet access?
• WiMax - everything is going to change.
• WiMax has a 50Km/30 mile radius for highspeed, wireless broadband.
• WiMax is going prime time in 2009 - 2010.
• They will start putting towers up and expand
broadband, mobile access, all over the
country.
EU
• EU:
– EU E-Learning Action Plan
– IB Diploma Programme Online (125
countries)
• UK: E-Learning Exports - 29 billion pounds
annually; deal with China
– Education as an export
Singapore
• Singapore: 100% of Secondary
schools use online learning
• All teachers trained to teach online
• Blended Learning Environments
• E-Learning Weeks
Singapore’s Masterplans
•
•
•
Masterplan for ICT I (1997-2002)
– Curriculum and Assessment.
– Content and Learning Resources.
– Physical and Technological Infrastructure.
– Human Resources Development
Masterplan for ICT II (2003-2008)
– Students use ICT effectively for active learning.
– Teachers use ICT effectively for professional and personal growth.
– Connections between curriculum, instruction and assessment are enhanced
using ICT.
– Schools have the capacity and capability to use ICT for school improvement.
– There is active research in ICT in education.
– There is an infrastructure that supports widespread and effective use of ICT”
(Koh and Lee, 2008, p.60-61).
Masterplan for ICT III (2009-2014)
– To strengthen integration of ICT into curriculum, pedagogy and assessment to
enhance learning and develop competencies for the 21st century;
– To provide differentiated professional development that is more practicebased and models how ICT can be effectively used to help students learn
better;
– To improve the sharing of best practices and successful innovations; and
– To enhance ICT provisions in schools to support the implementation of mp3.
Changing the Course of Education: the
“Best of Both Worlds”
• “Blended online learning should be approached as not
only a temporal construct, but rather as a fundamental
redesign of the instructional model with the following
characteristics:
• “A shift from lecture- to student-centered instruction where
students become interactive learners (this shift should apply
to entire course, including face-to-face sessions);
• Increases in interaction between student-instructor, studentstudent, student-content, and student-outside resources; and
• Integrated formative and summative assessment mechanisms
for student and instructor.” - Educause, Blended Learning
(2004)
Blended/Hybrid Learning
• “Combining face-to-face with fully online
components optimizes both environments in
ways impossible in other formats” Educause Research Bulletin, 2004
– Digital content, curriculum, LMS, online
assessments, data system, AI, simulations
– Shift in instructional model and training
Struggling student, low-engagement,
(More direct student support needed)
Self-direction, high engagement,
(Less direct student support needed)
What Leaders Need to Know:
Four Key Ideas
• #1 Online Learning Expands Options
• “The first impetus to the growth of K-12 distance education was
an interest in expanding educational options and providing equal
opportunities for all learners.” (p.7)
• #2 Online Learning Is Rapidly Growing
• “Recent Surveys show that K-12 online learning is a rapidly
growing phenomenon.” (p.4)
–
–
–
–
–
Clark: 40,000-50,000 enrollments in 2000-2001
Eduventures: 300,000 K-12 enrollments online 2002-3
USED/NCES: 328,000 enrollments in distance ed 2002-3
Peak Group: 500,000 enrollments in 2005
Growing 30% annually
Online Learning Works
• #3 Is Effective: “Equal or Better”
• “meta-analysis found that, on average, students in
online learning conditions performed better than those
receiving face-to-face instruction” (US DOE, 2009)
• #4 Improves Teaching
• Teachers who teach online reported positive
improvements in face-to-face, too.
• “Of those who reported teaching face-to-face while
teaching online or subsequently, three in four reported
a positive impact on their face-to-face teaching.” (p. 25)
• “Using the Internet to deliver courses
seems to contain great disruptive
potential. It could allow a radical
transformation to happen in an
incremental, rational way.” -Clayton
Christensen, Harvard Business
School
• Disrupting Class: How Disruptive
Innovation Will Change the Way the
World Learns predicts that the
growth in computer-based delivery
of education will accelerate swiftly
until, by 2019, half of all high
school classes will be taught over
the Internet.
• “Education over the Internet is going to be so big
it is going to make e-mail look like a rounding
error.” - John Chambers, Cisco CEO
Thank you!
Allison Powell
apowell@inacol.org