Although the media’s current tech obsession is AI, it wasn’t long ago that virtual reality (VR) was getting all the hype as the next big thing.
 
A recent post from the On EdTech newsletter by Phil Hill & Associates, referencing several articles about the use of VR at Arizona State University as well as his own visit, suggests that at least one implementation of VR seems to be working—but with a major twist. This is a post-secondary example, but the main point applies to K-12 as well.

Back in the very early days of the Trump administration, with Betsy Devos as Secretary of Education, Rick Hess wrote an opinion piece that turned out to be prescient. He wrote of his concern that the ways in which the administration was leaning into school choice was making school choice in general, and charter schools in particular, an even more partisan issue than it already was. His view was that this approach would backfire on education reform proponents, and I believe he was correct. (I’m unfortunately unable to find a link to his article.)

I’ve been a strong proponent of dual credit programs that allow high school students to receive college credits while they are still in high school. Although dual credit programs certainly don’t have to be online or hybrid, many online/hybrid high schools offer dual credit. Some are even located on community college campuses to further facilitate college credit accumulation.

According to an article in The Hechinger Report, which was picked up in USA Today and other sources, “School districts that created online academies to cater to families who preferred virtual education are struggling to keep them open as enrollment drops and costs rise.”
 

K-12 education in the US is so large, that for anyone thinking about state or national issues and trends, having some numbers in your working memory is imperative. The data points that follow are mostly from A primer on elementary and secondary education in the United States, published by Brookings, with a few from the National Center for Education Statistics. Quotes are from the Brookings primer. I’m rounding and simplifying the numbers below. The United States has:

Way back in the pre-covid times (December 2019), the DLC published a report titled eLearning Days: A scan of policy and guidance. As the study noted:
 
“eLearning days are used to maintain instruction during unplanned school closures most commonly due to weather (snow, ice, and extreme temperatures), natural disasters, or for other reasons including widespread illness. Some districts are using eLearning days for parent conferences and educator professional development days as well. eLearning days provide districts and their stakeholders an opportunity to continue the learning process and eliminate the need for adding extra days during or at the end of the school year for instructional and/or funding purposes.”

Reports of pandemic learning loss around the globe are filled with doom and gloom statistics about all of the regression the data shows from K-12 learning over the last 2+ years. As usual, the reality of the learning loss is much more nuanced and less dire than mainstream media reports. 

Over the past 25 years that I have been in this field, one theme has consistently been raised: "Can all students be successful as online learners? If not, can we predict which students will be successful?”

This is such a salient topic, in fact, that our Digital Learning Collaborative Executive Committee dug into it during our monthly discussions last week. What follows is a combination of the DLC members’ views and my own experience in the field.

Le Sallay Academy is an innovative blended learning school for children aged 10-14. During the school year, 4 three-week boarding sessions in France alternate with online study periods with 5 - 6 live classes a day. Le Sallay Academy has an academically challenging curriculum and personalized learning paths. A typical student at our school is one whose families move frequently. They are comfortable traveling internationally and have learned to adapt to new cultural contexts. A group sometimes known as Third Culture Kids.  Some of our students have been bullied at school because of their neurodiversity.  Le Sallay prides itself on the unique blended learning structure that helps all students achieve their full potential. 

Earlier posts (here, here, here) discussed whether online/hybrid/digital learning could be transformative, and how. Those posts concluded that digital learning could be transformative, and that there are compelling reasons that it should be, and ended with this question:
 
Why has education not been transformed even after two plus decades of online learning, and a disruptive pandemic?

A post three weeks ago asked
 
“Will digital learning, in the form of online and hybrid schools and courses, “transform” education?
 
Is “transforming” education even a viable goal?”

Last week’s post asked
 
“Will digital learning, in the form of online and hybrid schools and courses, “transform” education?
 
Is “transforming” education even a viable goal?”
 
The post used as a starting point Larry Cuban’s skeptical questions about transformation in education. Cuban’s post argues that transformation is an over-hyped word and concept, used too often and with too little thought.

Will digital learning, in the form of online and hybrid schools and courses, “transform” education?
 
Is “transforming” education even a viable goal?
 
These are fair questions, which I’m going to explore over this and two subsequent blog posts.

There are many ways that digital learning benefits students, as most readers of this blog are well aware. Online schools provide an alternative to students who want to move more quickly than their peers, or for students who need scheduling flexibility. Online courses allow students to learn subjects that they would not otherwise have access to. And so forth.

Recently I’ve been fairly optimistic about the increasing acceptance of online learning in education as well as more broadly across society. Last week’s post, for instance, mentioned
 
“a new normal around the increased acceptance of online learning. With the growth in online school and course enrollments, and the doubling or so of online schools in traditional school districts, the educators that DLAC serves are inching closing to mainstream acceptance. This too is accepted as a new reality, often without the need for additional discussion.”

A blog post before DLAC asked what our DLAC attendees were finding most notable in our field. With DLAC now in the rear view mirror, here are three observations I heard in Austin and online. Note that I’m not suggesting that these topics are any more important than ongoing issues such as student engagement, teacher retention and support, and instructional strategies. Those are likely to be topics of discussion for many years into the future. The three items below were new entrants to the DLAC dialogues.

This will be a short post, as we’re in the middle of the eight days of DLAC, with DLAC’s Online Opening Day behind us and our three main DLAC days—Online and in Austin—coming up next week.

Will AI-powered tools like ChatGPT transform education as we know it? The recent posts here on the DLC blog make great cases both for and against the potential for transformational change. I think it’s still too early to tell, as the full capabilities of the technology and how well they align to the core processes of learning are still unknown. I do think, however, that it’s not too soon to speculate on how this tool and others like it might impact digital and online learning specifically. As the use of ChatGPT begins to spread in educational circles, certain aspects of the discussion around it are worth exploring further to see how they relate to digital and online learning.

Previous posts looked at AI in education  and then at the case against the view that AI will transform education. This post explores why AI might in fact revolutionize education.
 
The New York Times published an expansive essay, “What Would Plato Say About ChatGPT?”, that includes this provocative opening:

A previous blog post noted the recent advances in AI that are being noted across many sectors, including in education. It’s not surprising that some people are predicting a near-term transformation of education as AI spreads. This post explores why those predictions are probably wrong. Next week’s post will explore why, maybe, they could be right.

The simplest argument for why AI will not transform education is this: