

More Pupils Are Learning Online, Fueling Debate on Quality - nathanh
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/education/06online.html

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tokenadult
"Mr. Hamilton, who had failed English 3 in a conventional classroom and was
hoping to earn credit online to graduate, was asked a question about the
meaning of social Darwinism. He pasted the question into Google and read a
summary of a Wikipedia entry. He copied the language, spell-checked it and
e-mailed it to his teacher."

If the goal of the school improvement program is defined as increasing high
school graduation rates, there will be strong incentives to allow this kind of
academic misconduct. Only if the goal of the school improvement program is to
improve student learning outcomes will there be any chance of checks and
balances being put into place to make sure the students can think
independently. Even at that, those checks and balances will only be in place
if the authorities evaluating student learning are not the same authorities
running the program. The program has to be evaluated on the basis of
independent evidence gathered directly from students in monitored conditions.

That said, I am very happy about the ALEKS online courses

<http://www.aleks.com/>

my three younger children are currently using to study mathematics in a
homeschooling setting. I can look in on their work from time to time, and they
can also use the software independently, from quite a young age because they
can read well, to focus exactly on the mathematics they need to learn next.
The problems are open-ended and reasonably well designed. The theory behind
the "knowledge spaces" model for the ALEKS course design

<http://www.aleks.com/about_aleks/Science_Behind_ALEKS.pdf>

is quite elegant. Based on recent posts here on HN, my oldest child still at
home is now delving quite a lot into Khan Academy lessons. I am still making
my mind up about how well I like the exercises that go with the Khan Academy
videos, which are still undergoing further development.

