Guest Blogger: Changes In Online Learning In Illinois

This is a guest entry written by Matt Wicks of Matthew Wicks and Associates.  Please note that Matt is the former Director of Operations, interim Director, and Director of the Illinois Virtual High School.

So far 2009 has been a year of significant changes in K-12 online learning in Illinois – three significant changes in specific.

Change 1: The Illinois Virtual School (http://www.ilvirtual.org) has replaced the Illinois Virtual High School (http://www.ivhs.org) . This isn’t exactly news for readers of this blog but personally represents the biggest change. After having served as co-founder of the program and Director or Interim Director for most of the last 6 years, I am now a full-time consultant in online learning, with the Illinois Virtual School as one of my clients.

On the surface this change doesn’t seem all that significant. The name change simply reflects a broader mission of the program to include more grade levels served and the addition of teacher professional development. The program continues to be a program of the Illinois State Board of Education; it is simply operated by a different entity within the state now. It is now operated by the Peoria County Regional Office of Education instead of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. And despite the broader mission, at least for now the program will still primarily focus on high school students, with some middle school offerings as a supplemental online program. Even the teachers of the program are largely unchanged.

The changes are more under the surface. There is an entirely new management team (although some of the IVHS administrative staff has been hired by IVS). There is an entirely new Learning Management System (Desire 2 Learn replacing eCollege). There is an entirely new registration system (Maestro from Bocavox replacing a system integrated with the LMS). None of these changes are inherently bad decisions. However, the challenges of managing and implementing all of these changes in a very short time frame are significant. In addition the changes have the potential of causing disruption to existing relationships with school – part of the challenge of managing and implementing all of these changes.

The next several months will be critical months for the Illinois Virtual School as they launch all of these new systems. My hope is that the launch goes smoothly and IVS continues to deliver on the promise that IVHS began.

Change 2: The Illinois legislature passed online learning legislation for the first time. HB2448 was unanimously passed by both the house and senate and is now waiting for action by the governor. (Full disclosure: I am a registered lobbyist in Illinois and represented a client in support of this bill.) This bill allows school districts to create “remote educational programs” (i.e. full-time or supplemental online learning programs) and still receive genera l state aid even if the student is not physically at the school. Previously schools could not count online courses towards general state aid unless the student took the course while physically at school. This setup worked okay for participation in a supplemental program such as the Illinois Virtual High School, but did not provide options for full-time virtual schools other than charter schools. (More about virtual charter schools in change 3.)

While the bill does open the way for additional online learning opportunities in Illinois, the bill is very prescriptive in regards to the requirements a school district must satisfy in creating an online program. The district must determine that the program best meet’s the student’s individual needs and that the curriculum aligns to the Illinois learning standards as well as being equivalent in grade level of other students in the district. In addition, they must create a educational plan for each student that is fairly detailed. The bill also requires that the teachers are state certified as well as highly qualified and are fully in charge of the teacher process while a parent or other adult supervises the child in a non-teaching role at the remote location.

There are portions of the bill that require a school to be much more detailed in identifying portions of the educational practice for their online program than their traditional program. For example, they must identify the specific achievements goals for the student; have a description of all assessments that will be used as well as detailing out how the student and teacher will interact. In some ways, it feels like each student has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) except the student doesn’t necessarily have special education needs.

Still, assuming the governor signs the bill, the fact that this is the first piece of legislation related to online learning makes the change noteworthy. In the 8 years of operation of the Illinois Virtual High School, no online learning legislation was passed. HB3743, a bill that would have established the Illinois Virtual School as its own entity separate from the Illinois State Board of Education, had a more typical fate when online learning policy has been discussed in Illinois – it never left committee.

Change 3: The Circuit Court of Cook County weighs in on full-time virtual charter schools. Illinois only has one full-time virtual charter school, the Chicago Virtual Charter School (CVCS), operated by K12, Inc. serving students from Chicago Public Schools. Almost immediately after CVCS received final approval of its charter in 2006, a lawsuit was filed by the Chicago Teachers Union. The lawsuit claimed that the school did not meet the requirements of Illinois school code because charter school law states that charter schools may not be home-based. The lawsuit also claimed that the school did not meet the requirements of state law when it came to student supervision.

On June 16, Judge Daniel Riley dismissed the lawsuit finding that CVCS was not home-based and because it was a charter school it was not required to meet the same definitions of direct supervision required of a regular public school. While there is still the possibility that the Chicago Teacher’s Union will appeal the decision, at least for now CVCS is able to operate for the first time without the fear that the courts will shut them down.

CVCS requires students to come to their physical location to attend classes one half day a week. I had always thought the lawsuit would come down to the whether or not the half day of attendance would keep the school from being considered home-based even though in general the student is at home the rest of the week. However, the judge’s ruling did not seem to focus on the half day of attendance but instead if CVCS met the criteria of home schooling. The ruling states:

“Home schooling is a well-known and established means of education. While the form of home schools may vary, the underlying substance of the education is decided by a student’s parents. Home schools do not have to teach according to Illinois State Board of Education’s mandated curriculum, nor are the students required to take standardized tests to meet the State’s requirements for basic skills improvement. CVCS, however, is required to teach according to the ISBE curriculum. CVCS students must meet the State’s requirements of the No Child Left Act. CVCS is subject to fiscal oversight by the ISBE and Chicago Board of Education. And, unlike home-schooled students, CVCS students are graded by certified teachers.”

In regards to the issue of supervision, the judge indicated that as a charter school, CVCS is not subject to how the Illinois School code defines days of attendance and direct supervision. Instead it is subject to the provisions of its charter which requires five hours of schoolwork per day. Judge Riley indicated that CVCS meets this standard with a combination of on-site and off-site instruction. While I am not a lawyer, I am not reading anything that indicates the on-site instruction is inherently required, just that the student meet the standards defined in the charter.

It seems to me this ruling opens the possibility of the creation of other full-time virtual charter schools. In fact, a district that wished to create a significant online learning program might find creating a charter school would provide more flexibility than following the provisions of HB2448.

However, without further legislation, Illinois is not going to see state-wide virtual schools likes those that exist in many other states. A multi-district virtual charter school would be possible. Charter schools can be sponsored by multiple districts so in theory several school districts could join together to create a single virtual charter school. Given the history of charter schools in Illinois this seems to me this is something that is just theoretical.

New Illinois Virtual School Website

A couple of week ago in IVS Preview I mentioned how the Illinois Virtual High School was being replaced by the Illinois Virtual School (IVS) on 01 July 2009.  Well, the IVS now has their new website up and operating.  You can access it at:

http://www.ilvirtual.org/

This new website should reflect their expand grades 5-12 mandate and the increase emphasis on teacher professional development.

Disrupting Class: Chapter Six

As this is a shorter entry, I wanted to point out an item that I saw in the ASCD SmartBrief about a month ago:

Q-and-A: Disrupting Class: A Conversation with Michael Horn

ASCD Worldwide Edition SmartBrief | 06/16/2009

In the book “Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns”, authors Clayton Christensen, Curtis Johnson and Michael Horn argue that computers have the power to “disrupt” the current paradigm of standardisation in education and open the door for customised, student-centered learning. In an Education Update interview, Horn speaks about “Disrupting Class” and explains that schools taking advantage of disruptive innovations such as technology and, in particular, online learning will be poised to better serve students by offering more customised services. In the interview, he talks about the use of technology in schools, examples of places where disruptive innovation is being used in the classroom, how disruptive innovation would look in the classroom, and the new role for teachers when disruptive innovations force the education system to change.

In reading this sixth chapter of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, the biggest issue that I have with the authors contention deals with their portrayal of pre-school or early childhood education and the effects that it can have on future education.

One of the problems with this issue is that it simply can’t be examined in the isolated way that the authors have done in this chapter. The first thing to note is that there is still a great deal of debate about this notion of the first 36 months or that there exists specific optimal windows for learning specific things (e.g., there is a common belief that a child who learns a second language before the age of 10 or 11 will be able to master that second language easier than someone who tries to learn it later in life or that their ability to learn additional languages is strengthened). I was actually listening to a selection of researchers on the CBC radio program this past Monday where they were actually reporting a series of research studies that indicated that many of the programs (television shows, movies, computer programs, etc.) that are designed for three years and under actually hinder cognitive development.  Unfortunately, I believe the show was played in during The Choice – which is essentially a replay of other shows as requested by listeners, and this was too bad as I was hoping to link the podcast of the episode into this entry (I’ll keep looking to see if I can find it and update this entry later).

Another of the problems with this kind of research is that it often fails to control for things like whether one or both parents are working, whether there is one or two parents (or extended family living at home), the nature of childcare outside of the formal education activities, the types of activities that children engage in during those non-formal times, and particularly socio-economic status. A child who is enrolled in pre-school, but goes home and sits in front of the television or in front of their video games for most of the remainder of their time will not have the same level of cognitive development when they begin school as the child who leaves pre-school and goes home to be engaged in piano lessons, then is off to play little league, before having a bedtime story read to them at night. The piano lessons, little league, and books in the home are all indicators of socio-economic status. This isn’t even considering the nutritional differences that might exist between children based on socio-economic status.

I focus on socio-economic status because if you look at countries that the United States trails in terms of educational achievement, many of them are highly socialized with programs that would ensure the health, nutrition and early education of children within the country (as opposed to the US model where those that can do, and those that can’t fail – and then we blame the teachers, the teachers’ union, the curriculum, colleges of education, etc. for that failure). There was a very interesting blog entry entitled “Dancing Around the Elephant in the Room” over at The Quick and the Ed that I think captures this discussion quite well. The problem is, and it was one of the problems outlined in my discussion of Chapter 5, that the solution to the problem is something that the political right isn’t willing to consider because a it involves having a collective conscious for society, and not just looking out for the best of the individual (and this is not to suggest that this is the position of the authors, although they are a group of business professors).

For those interested in this topic and would like to read about it more, I would highly recommend David Kirp’s book “The Sandbox Investment: The preschool Movement and Kids-First Politics”.

Again a reminder that I will be travelling all day today, so I won’t be able to approve or respond to comments left until Monday morning on this and the previous post.

Disrupting Class: Chapter Five

Well, it has been a while since I posted my last chapter review for Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (in fact, it was over four months ago – see Disrupting Class: Chapter Four – and you’ll note then that it had been a while for that chapter too).  Currently, my goal is to finish off the book again and review the final four chapters (after this one) by the end of August – fingers crossed.  This would be useful, as I note that Allison has announced one of the keynotes for this year’s Virtual School Symposium (and I’ll be posting an entry about that next weekend or so) – and I’ll have to go out and buy his book now so I can spend the few months trying to get it read before November.

Anyway, Chapter 5 gets to one of the crux of the problem with the authors thesis.  The notion that the construction of student-centric learning is something that is easily constructed.  And not because of technologies inability to do some of the things that we want it to do, or that the authors claim it can do, but based upon the kinds of knowledge we value.

If the knowledge that is valued is the kind that is currently valued under the educational regime that exists in the United States, than yes, what the authors are proposing is totally possible.  Under the current regime, sponsored by the conservative agenda, the knowledge that is valued is the kind that can be boiled down to discrete standards and tested using a multiple choice exam.  And we can make online student centric learning that does this, in fact most online credit recovery programs are based on this very model (the external evaluations conducted by Bracey and Ohanian of the K12, Inc. program in 2004 illustrate this point quite well).

If you consider these programs, you have a student that logs in, take a multiple-choice test to determine what they know.  Because the program is designed in a modular way, the instruction that the student receives is based on what they don’t know already know, in the hopes that it will allow them to pass another multiple-choice test at the end of the process.

The problem with this isn’t the technology and our ability to do it, it is the kind of knowledge that is valued in that system.  Knowledge that can be boiled down to one to three sentence stems that lead to three to five possible responses does not prepare students with the skills they really need.  This notion that the political right has that knowledge can be boiled down to a set of facts, figures, dates, people, laws, theories, etc. and that this information can be tested in a standardized format is why the United States is losing its competitiveness in the global economy.

It isn’t that this kind of information isn’t useful, it just isn’t enough.  If you look at the whole twenty-first century skills initiative (see Partnership for 21^st Century Skills).  While I don’t agree that these skills are necessarily twenty-first century skills (in fact, I’ve argued that they are largely nineteenth century skills that my grandfather possessed, see VSS2007 – Virtual Schools and 21st Century Skills and New Report from Partnership for 21st Century Skills), I do agree that many of these skills are what we need to be equipping our students with.  Skills like critical thinking, inductive and deductive reasoning, solving ill defined problem, communicate effectively in diverse environments, etc..  The problem is that these skills are not easily evaluated using a multiple-choice test.  And without massive investments in artificial intelligence or human resources, we can’t personalize online computer-based instruction without using multiple-choice tests to determine what students already know.

So, forgetting about the issues that I have expressed before about the value and need to personalize learning based on the fact that learning styles are as much a pseudo-science as anything…  Even though we can do this now, the way in which we can do it isn’t something we should be pursuing because it places value on the wrong kind of knowledge.

This isn’t to say that it won’t be possible.  There is exciting work happening in the field of artificial intelligence that show great promise.  And one of the places where we see this most often is in the video game industry.  If you ever watch someone play a video game and you look at the way the game changes based upon the player and their individual needs.  How an item of health or a particular weapon seem to appear when it is most needed, or the level of challenge adjusts itself based upon the skill level exhibited by the player to ensure that the next opponent or next level is just beyond their reach and the only way the player will be able to achieve it is if they up their game just a little bit (for the cognitive psychologists out there, essentially Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development) – these are all examples of the artificial intelligence built into the game to personal the gaming experience – essentially to make the game player centric.

So the technology and the artificial intelligence that is required to be able to do some of these things is available.  The problem is that it isn’t present in the way that we have designed online learning to date.  Yesterday I reported some additional information about a game-based history course that was created by the Florida Virtual School and 360Ed at a cost of $1.5 million – and this is without even commenting on how sophisticated FLVS’ “Conspiracy Code” is compared to most over-the-counter video games.  Consider that fact that many K-12 online learning programs pay teachers (many with little technical expertise, particularly when it comes to multimedia skills) between $10,000 – $25,000 to design the online courses.  What does this say about the economic ability of most virtual schools to design online courses that have a high enough level of artificial intelligence built into them to provide student centric learning that goes beyond the kinds of rote knowledge valued by multiple-choice tests?

Note I will be travelling all day today, so I won’t be able to approve or respond to comments left until Monday morning on this and the next post.

Article: Best Practices for Integrating Game-Based Learning into Online Teaching

Okay, setting aside the poor use of the term “best practices” (and for the new folks, how can it be a best practice when it isn’t based on empirical research that has been found to be reliable and valid?)…  Over the past week or two I’ve posted a couple of entries about the use of games as a pedagogical strategy in K-12 online learning (see FLVS Game: Conspiracy Code and K-12 Online Learning And Games, Learning & Society 2009).  Anyway, I saw this entry in my RSS feed last night from

Online Learning: Best Practices for Integrating Game-Based Learning into Online Teaching – Rudy McDaniel and Peter Telep, JOLT

This article presents ten guidelines for the effective use of video games in online teaching environments for post-secondary instructors. These guidelines include: taking advantage of existing resources, asking students to be producers instead of just consumers, avoiding being overly prescriptive, being aware of non-media-intense and non-electronic games, staying focused on learning—not technology, orienting and debriefing students as to the value of gaming activities, embracing interdisciplinarity, taking advantage of serious games, considering collaborative technologies and virtual worlds, and playtesting. Recent research in game-based learning is considered to help guide these best practices and numerous ideas for incorporating games into the virtual classroom are provided. Although empirical research about the effectiveness of online video games as educational tools is an important component for sustainability and for improving online learning games, this paper focuses exclusively on the theoretical and applied issues associated with online game-based learning. The authors contend that such teaching practices are useful for engaging with student audiences and encouraging them to take intellectual risks in comfortable and familiar territory.

The article is from the Journal of Online Learning and Teaching and the direct link is:

http://jolt.merlot.org/vol5no2/mcdaniel_0609.htm

Again, these ten guidelines aren’t based upon any research – just a review of the literature and the authors’ own beliefs (and let’s face it when you are relying upon Prensky as a main source of your literature review, you know how far from empirical, reliable and valid research you have strayed) – but they are worth looking at and considering.

Some are even quite useful, for example there is a pretty good body of research that supports guideline two, “Ask Students to Produce, Not Just Consume, Materials” – particularly if you consider the work of Yasmin Kafai and Lloyd Rieber.

Anyway, I put this out there for your interest, but also with this caution…