By Nathan Martin
July 11, 2013
The push for digital learning is rooted in the belief that the needs of students should be put first.
Politics, long-seated educational practices and misinformation can obscure this basic principle, but at the heart of current excitement is the belief that, when used properly, education technology empowers students and teachers.
The Economist provides an excellent primer on the latest advances and a background for the US has reached this digital tipping point. The briefing, Catching on at last: New technology is poised to disrupt America’s schools, and then the world’s, is well worth a read, not just for the highlighting of exciting schools like Rocketship but for a useful detailing on the policy advances, economic investments and political challenges impacting the growth of digital learning.
The Economist also highlights some key research demonstrating how these new technologies are improving student achievement:
As well as evidence from these schools, the effectiveness of particular bits of software has been studied. The Department of Education spent four years evaluating literacy programs; it concluded that Read 180, a program to help students who have fallen behind in reading, was good at combating adult illiteracy. A randomised control trial of Cognitive Tutor, which helps teachers identify weaknesses and strengths in maths, among 400 15-year-olds in Oklahoma found that children using the program reached the same level of proficiency as the control group in 12% less time.
The article also picks up on a point that we emphasize every day at DLN: policy matters. Technology can disrupt education but only if policy provides the opportunity for these new models to emerge.
For all that, formidable barriers still exist to getting education technology into America’s schools. These range from the prosaic to the ideological. America’s 13,000 school districts still upgrade their texts and equipment on slow, unsynchronised cycles and follow a bewildering range of procurement processes. Glenn Anderson, a former Washington state legislator and consultant on education policy, emphasises that education is a highly regulated public utility in which rules can govern everything, from what goes into textbooks to how many children there are in a class. And local politicians can change rules or policy unpredictably. This causes problems for a start-up which wants to get its technology into a lot of schools. Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, takes the problem so seriously that it avoids any edtech investment in which a school or school district would be the main buyer.
While well-versed with the policy struggles here in the US, noting, “unions have filed lawsuits to close down online charter schools, including what looks like a deliberately obtuse proposal to limit enrollment at such virtual schools to those who live in their districts,” the summary is optimistic about the potential future of digital learning.
So are we. We’ve highlighted the incredible amount of legislation being introduced and passed in state legislatures in 2012 that are opening up new opportunities for teachers, students, and entrepreneurs. The pace of reform is only growing faster in 2013. In just the first half of the year we’ve seen new legislation in Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan, South Carolina, and Florida advancing online learning. Vermont passed a bill creating more flexible pathways for students to graduate, including using blended learning. Louisiana launched their innovative Course Choice program with students enrolling in course offered by the Louisiana-based Associated Builders and Contractors in Baton Rouge, St. James Parish schools, the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts, FLVS, as well as national course providers like Princeton Review and Rocket Learning Partners. Texas passed a bill that allows students to earn credit by passing exams rather than seat time.
More needs to be done which is why DLN continues to work with state leaders who are advancing reform and providing a support through our DLN Smart Series on issues related to online learning, data, devices, preparing for online assessments, and implemented competency-based learning. We’re also working on several new projects including launching a multi-state partnership to facilitate easier approval of online course providers. This frees up resources from states to focus more on quality and monitoring while making it easier for providers of all types to serve students in multiple states.
Nathan Martin serves as the State Policy Director for Digital Learning Now!.