I received this e-mail a few days ago and I wanted to share it with folks and see if any others had feedback.
Thank-you very much for your many and varied contributions to online learning!! I have been reading some of your reviews, specifically geared to the K12 audience, and have also listened to some of your audio recordings currently online! Your contributions and vision in this area are greatly appreciated by parents such as myself who are currently choosing to homeschool our children. The many resources and sites of information you have led me to through your discussions and papers have made my job tremendously more successful, so thank-you for your work thus far!
I am writing as I have been researching online schools for our son, who is soon to be starting. We have found one school in particular that has a very engaging format for young children in the form of video teaching and wondered if you wouldn’t mind providing some feedback on our tentative choice, based on your overview and insight as to what is available to us. We have focused in on http://www.bjupress.com after having viewed the samples of their video content lessons. However, we reside in Guelph, Ontario and are concerned about the American focus of some of the areas of study. We have been able to compensate for this through http://www.donnaward.net website for the geography and social studies aspects. The imperial versus metric, and the spelling components will be something we will also need to address. So as a result of these conflicts in curriculum, we wondered if you knew of something in Canada which is able to provide video teaching in a similarly engaging and detailed format. So far, we are drawing a blank in that regard and would appreciate your guidance in providing us with some insight as to where to search.
Again, I thank-you for your many contributions to the development of online education in Canada!!! It is truly exciting to see the many directions of your past and current work.
I responded by thanking them for the comments and then suggesting:
There are several options that may be available to you.
One is that you could enroll in one or more courses offered by the private virtual schools in the province. One is Virtual High School (Ontario) (see http://www.virtualhighschool.com/ ) and the other is the Ottawa-Carleton eSchool (see http://www.ottawacarletone-school.ca/ ).
Another would be public school options in your area. The Ontario eLearning Consortium (see http://oelc.ca/ ) is a group of school districts that have partnered together to share their online course resources with each other to allow each of them to increase their course offerings. The Ministry of Education changed the regulations in the past few years to allow for schools to allow districts to receive funding for students enrolled in their online courses, even if the students weren’t enrolled in the school for any face-to-face courses.
There are also some fee-based options in the United States that are also worth exploring. If your child is old enough to be considering Advanced Placement courses, I would recommend any of the courses offered by APEX Learning (see http://www.apexlearning.com/ ). None of the state-wide or even the cyber charter options would be available, as they can’t accept students beyond the borders of their own states (at least I don’t think they can).
I’m not sure if there are other Canadian private options outside of Ontario that would accept a student from Ontario. Or if a student from Ontario could avail themselves of public online options available in other provinces.
So, any one have any additional suggestions for a student in this position in Ontario?
It would seem that like all things, schooling has now entered the realm of cyberspace. This is good to see, in terms of those who wish to home school their children
Comment by School of Life, The Universe and Everything — July 8, 2009 @ 5:00 pm |
This is quite true, moreso in the United States than in Canada (and Ontario) – largely because I get the sense that home schooling is more prevalent in the US than north of the border.
Comment by mkbnl — July 8, 2009 @ 5:34 pm |
I found very few mentions of online schools outside America. I did search for them in places like Canada and the UK with very limited success – not more than a handful in each.
Did you hear that the Ohio State government is planning to do away with State funding for online schools as a major cost cutting exercise in the Educational budget – if this idea spreads countrywide, we would lose one of the greatest educational resources we have!
Comment by Peter Fogarty — July 13, 2009 @ 2:40 pm |
Peter, there are many K-12 online learning programs outside of the United States. The main problem is that there is very little written about them so they go under the radar for the most part.
On the Ohio front, I think you are a little ill-informed on the matter. The Government (and I’d have to check to see which branch(es) exactly) have proposed to limit the amount of funding. The notion is that it doesn’t cost the same amount to provide an online education as it does a brick-and-mortar one, so why fund them at the same rate. And based on all of the public information I have seen this appears to be true, that the cost per student is less (and all of the for-profit companies involved in cyber charter schools would certainly speak to the fact that under current funding levels there is money to be made).
The problem is that most of these for-profit models don’t release exactly how much it costs, so at what level online education should be funded is a bit of a mystery. I do believe that the cuts in Ohio are a little on the harsh side. While I don’t think the brick-and-mortar should have a 1:1 ratio with the online, I do believe that the latest proposal in Ohio does cut too deep. Ohio has a number of other issues in the fact that it doesn’t have a state-wide supplemental program like many other states, so all online education is done through the cyber charter schools. Historically, this group in this state does not have a good record – as many were set-up when the legislation first allowed them to simply be used as a way for companies and school districts to be able to make money off of each other. While this practice has been cleaned up, folks who remember these events still treat this particular community (i.e., cyber charter schools) with suspicion.
The bottom line is that eventually we will have to get to a point where we have a better understanding of the funding and how much is does cost, so that state can provide appropriate levels of funding to allow for a sustainable, yet manageable growth.
Comment by mkbnl — July 13, 2009 @ 2:54 pm |
Thank you so much for correcting me. I really do appreciate it.
Comment by Peter Fogarty — July 14, 2009 @ 2:12 am |
No problem… You are right in the sense that if the levels proposed were enacted it would likely hamper online learning in that state. But the notion of funding online learning at a lesser rate than brick-and-mortar education would like not kill online learning if we had more information about exactly what level is needed (and maybe the current measure is designed to figure that out in a heavy handed way, I don’t know).
Thanks again for the comments though, and participate in any of the other conversations that we have started on this blog.
Comment by mkbnl — July 14, 2009 @ 6:58 am |
Hello,
I would definately look at the courses offered through elearningontario.ca. The board that are offering courses through elearningontario are listed on the website. It would feesible to sign your child up for one course and see how he/she does with the demands of online learning. There are may flash elements and video clips that allow the courses to be more engaging but not everyone can meet the demands of online learning.
Comment by atteacher — September 12, 2009 @ 6:28 pm |
Atteacher, aren’t the courses offered through elearningontario.ca the same ones that are offered by the Ontario eLearning Consortium? My understanding was that the districts that participated in the Ontario eLearning Consortium used the provincial course management system and the course content offered by elearningontario.ca. The only thing that districts provide is the individual teacher for the course. Am I mistaken in this understanding?
Comment by mkbnl — September 12, 2009 @ 6:48 pm |