Week 11...

There are so many variables! Right now, it seems to be just impossible to really make strong comparisons between face to face or even between different online courses.  What a lot of people have been posting is that instead of always comparing, we should be looking for best practices.  I think it is easy to forget that we often do the same in studying just face to face classes.  A classroom (online or otherwise) is such a dynamic environment that it is impossible to control the variables.  Besides the fact, that unlike lab experiments we don't always want to control all the variables because that isn't in the best interest of the students.  So we study best practices.  As educators we need to embrace this and continue to improve our own practices.

Week 10 thoughts...

What did you learn this week that struck you as particularly important in learning about virtual schools? Has your thinking changed as a result of what you learned this week? 

This week I thought more about how online schools and classes are great for certain students and maybe not for others.  We can't compare f2f classes with online courses because they are geared for particular students.  Maybe in the future online courses will be more common for "everyone" but now they are for kids who are advanced, or need extra help (or a second round at a course).  So we can't compare them and that's ok.  We need to look at what makes courses good for particular students and run with that.  I get that we don't have the data to compare so we think about why that is (such as the student audience is different).  I now think more about the real differences between the two methods and ways to emphasize them, not downplay them.