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Technology Seen Transforming U.S. Education System

Posted on: Monday, 7 July 2008, 18:50 CDT

The use of technology, including everything from kid-friendly laptops to online courses and virtual teachers, is transforming the nation’s schools, reducing the need for textbooks, paper, notepads and in some cases even the schools themselves.

Education experts say schools such as the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School provide an interesting glimpse into the future of education. Frederick is a state funded school in Dorchester, a rough Boston district prone to poor schools and crime.

The school has no textbooks, and every day each of its 650 students receive an Apple Inc laptop at the start of day to perform their assignments, returning them at the end of the day. Both the students and teachers maintain blogs, and instant message software is used for communication between staff and parents. Completed assignments are submitted through electronic "drop boxes" on the school's Web site.  

Indeed, "The dog ate my homework" is not an acceptable excuse at this school.

“It’s comfortable,” said 11-year-old student Jemella Chambers, referring to the Scholastic Corp's FASTT Math software she and other students use to compete for high scores by completing math equations.

"This makes me learn better. It's like playing a game," she told Reuters.

The Frederick experiment began two years ago at cost of about $2 million. However, last year was the first in which every 7th and 8th grade student received laptops to perform class assignments. Such classwork is done using applications such as Google Inc's free Google Docs, Apple's iMovie and specialized educational software like FASTT Math.

"Why would we ever buy a book when we can buy a computer? Textbooks are often obsolete before they are even printed," Debra Socia, the school’s principal, told Reuters.  

A novel-stocked library is the school’s one nod to the past.

"It's a powerful, powerful experience," said Socia.

The school’s average attendance increased to 94 percent from 92 percent, Socia said, while discipline referrals fell nearly 30 percent. And parents are more engaged, she added.

"Any family can chat online with teacher and say 'hey, we're having this problem'."

Unlike traditional schools, Frederick students in the same classroom often work at very different levels, and a single classroom can include both high achievers and special needs students.

Computers track a range of aptitude levels, allowing teachers to adapt their teaching to their students' weakest areas, according to Socia.

The Internet has also created change. According to industry body North American Council for Online Learning, U.S. enrollment in online virtual classes topped 1 million last year, 22 times the number seen in 2000.

That's only the start, Michael Horn, co-author of "Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns", told Reuters. Horn serves as executive director of education at Innosight Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Massachusetts.

"Our projections show that 50 percent of high school courses will be taught online by 2019. It's about one percent right now," he said.

Ron Packard, CEO of Virginia-based K12 Online Home Schooling, which provides online curriculum and educational services in 17 states, said student enrollment jumped 57 percent over last year to 41,000 full-time students. A significant part of the growth is from publicly funded virtual charter schools.

"Because it is a public school, the state funds the education similar to what they would in a brick and mortar school, but we get on average about 70 percent of the dollars," Packard said during an interview with Reuters.

"We don't usually get capital dollars, or bond issue dollars. Sometimes we don't get local dollars. So on average it works out 70 percent of the per pupil spending that an average school in the state would receive.”

"We're getting the kids who the local school is not working for. And the spectrum goes from extreme special education to extremely gifted kids," he added.

As more states adopt virtual schools, investment firm Morgan Stanley predicts K12 and similar companies will capture an increasing share of the $550 billion publicly funded U.S. education market for children aged 5 to 18.  

As part of the company’s international expansion plans, K12 recently opened an office in Dubai. Packard expects strong overseas demand for American primary and secondary education geared to foreign nationals who want to enter universities in the United States.

Bellevue, Washington-based Apex Learning Inc is experiencing a similar spike in demand. The company got its start in 1997 by offering online advanced-placement courses to parents and individual schools, but now markets a wide variety of online courses for entire school districts and state departments of education.

"Over the last two years in particular we have seen very, very significant growth in the interest and demand for our type of digital curriculum," the firm’s CEO Cheryl Vedoe said in a Reuters telephone interview.

She said Apex enrollments surged 50 percent to 300,000 in 2006-2007, and likely increased at the same rate last year.

"Where we see the greatest growth today is actually in brick and mortar high schools for programs for students who are not succeeding in the existing programs," she said.

Another area of rapid growth is online tutoring. TutorVista, based in Bangalore, launched its online U.S. services in 2005, and predicts a 22 percent monthly increase in number active students worldwide, all of whom will be instructed by the company’s "e-tutors", located mostly in India.

In an education system in which only two-thirds of the students graduate from high school, and even less for black and Hispanic students, Horn expects that decreasing demand for teachers and the use of virtual schools will boost scholastic achievement in the United States.

"You deliver education at lower cost, but you will actually improve the amount of time that a teacher can spend with each student because they are no longer delivering one-size-fits-all lesson plans," he said.

"They can actually roam around."

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On the Net:

Apple Inc

Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School

FASTT Math

Google Docs

North American Council for Online Learning

K12 Online Home Schooling

Apex Learning Inc

Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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