www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-onlineclass-20110424,0,4120761.story
Online learning for Illinois high schoolers inspires praise, suspicion
By John Keilman, Tribune reporter
4:07 PM CDT, April 24, 2011
Miriam Kotacka doesn't want to wait for her future. She's only 16, yet she's due to graduate from Aurora's Metea Valley High School in a few weeks so she can begin training full time as a ballet dancer.
She has been able to speed her education by taking a semester's worth of classes on her Mac laptop. She has studied the stars, the human body and other subjects in virtual classrooms where teachers were present only through instant messaging, email or occasional video links.
"I really liked the experience," she said after wrapping up a semester of world literature two weeks ahead of schedule. "It helps to teach you those deadlines. If you're going to take an online class, you need to pretty much pay attention. You can't relax. It's not a blow-off class."
Kotacka is in the vanguard of a movement that some believe will transform K-12 learning. Online classes, already a staple at the college level, are popping up with increasing frequency in Chicago-area high schools — and even middle schools — promising to help high-fliers and stragglers alike get the most from their education.
"You can personalize for each student and have incredible rigor," said Michael Horn of the Innosight Institute, a California-based think tank. "It's a data-rich environment. You can constantly see what does and doesn't work."
But not everyone has joined the bandwagon. Critics say the trend is more about saving money than improving education, and that the effectiveness of online courses remains unproven.
"We have yet to see a vendor who has made the case that students who lack the motivation to do homework, to engage in class, to manage their time efficiently … will be more successful in online learning," said Samantha Dolen of Palatine-based District 211, where only two of 13,000 students take Internet classes.
Still, some observers believe the trend is likely to accelerate. They say revenue-starved schools will find the economics irresistible — fast-growing Huntley High School will introduce six online classes next year, largely to keep students out of the building so it won't have to expand — and will be intrigued by the potential for better results.
"There is no real, robust, state-led effort in online learning yet in Illinois … (but) I can say with confidence that at this time next year, legislators in Springfield will be talking about online learning as a policy priority," said Collin Hitt of the Illinois Policy Institute.
Internet-based education has grown slowly in Illinois. The state introduced a virtual high school in 2001, intended mainly for students who wanted to take advanced classes their own schools didn't offer.
Today, its online program offers 120 courses to grades 5 through 12, but only about 1,000 of the state's 1.2 million public school students in that age range sign up each semester. Cindy Hamblin, director of the Illinois Virtual School, said its enrollments could be relatively small because some districts contract with private companies to provide online courses.
That's what happened in District U-46, which this year bought "credit recovery" classes from Apex, a Seattle-based company. The courses are meant for those who have failed in a regular classroom, and Assistant Superintendent Greg Walker said the students often find the computer to be liberating.
"They're moving at their own pace," he said. "They're able to go back and look at things, where in a traditional classroom it might be moving too fast for them."
Few school systems, though, have done as much as Indian Prairie District 204, which started an in-house program nine years ago.
Howard Crouse, an associate superintendent at the time, said the first online class was consumer economics, a course required by the state. By taking it on their own time, he said, high-achieving seniors could fill their schedules with tougher classes.
Indian Prairie has since added five classes — astronomy, 20th century literature, Advanced Placement English, health and U.S. history — along with a summer math program for middle school students. About 400 students a year enroll in one of the high school courses, and up to 100 take online courses from other providers.
"It allows me to get out of school earlier," said Neuqua Valley senior Brandon Liebmann, 18, who is taking consumer economics. "I have a part-time job, and this gives me more flexibility to do homework before getting to work."
Laura Kurtyak has taught an online health class for four years and said the distance ironically creates a stronger bond between student and teacher.
"Students who maybe would sit back in class and not discuss and not share are all of a sudden more apt to do it," she said. "Maybe they can put a little more thought into what they want to share."
The lack of face-to-face contact, though, also makes it a challenge to police cheating. Indian Prairie generally requires online students to take their final exams in classrooms, where they are monitored by teachers, but other assignments are harder to supervise.
"We have caught some students who basically plagiarized each other," said Joe Moreau, who teaches consumer economics. "I have to say, though, sometimes you don't know who's doing the work. Is it Mom or Dad, or the student?"
The district tracks the achievement of its online students, and some of its findings might be surprising. For example, the 50 middle school students who took the summer math class last year — cramming a year's worth of learning into six weeks — did about as well in their subsequent math course as those who had taken two semesters to cover the material.
Horn, of the Innosight Institute, predicted that half of all high school classes will be delivered online within eight years, driven by shrinking school budgets and a thirst for innovation. Text-based courses — "worksheets on a computer," as some deride them — could give way to more exotic hybrids, such as an American history video game developed by Florida educators.
But as the classes become more commonplace, scrutiny likely will increase too. Gene Glass, senior researcher at the National Education Policy Center, said research has so far failed to prove that online instruction is superior to face-to-face education.
Jeff Hunt, who runs Indian Prairie's online program, said such critiques are a caution to those who want to expand Internet-based learning.
"We have to do this well because we can't do it over," he said. "(Poor results) will verify to critics that there's no quality there."
Tribune reporter Lawerence Synett contributed.
jkeilman@tribune.com
Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune
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The criticisms are the same even for regular classes with regards to who is doing the homework. Even with regular face to face classes, some kids can also do the homework and do it well but bomb tests due to 'pressure' or other factors.
