Research

Lets’ be honest – diving into evidence based research reports issued by the US Department of Education was not likely to be on the summer reading lists for many of us over the past few months. One such report that did catch my eye however was a research publication that was released in May, 2009. “Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning” is a study that looks at the effectiveness of online learning. Specifically, this research study set out to answer the following questions:

1. How does the effectiveness of online learning compare with that of face-to-face instruction?
2. Does supplementing face-to-face instruction with online instruction enhance learning?
3. What practices are associated with more effective online learning?
4. What conditions influence the effective of online learning?

Unlike that summer thriller that you may have read at the beach, let’s jump to the end immediately. Key findings from this study include:

• Students who took all or part of their courses online performed better than those who took the same course solely in a traditional face-to-face environment.
• Instruction that combined elements of both online and face-to-face delivery had a larger advantage than instruction provided solely online.
• The effectiveness of online learning approaches appears to be broad across different online content and student types.

What does this study potentially mean? First I would say that it provides evidence to show that online learning is a viable alternative to traditional methods for delivering instruction. Other research studies have similarly shown that students are achieving at equal if not higher rates in online courses compared to traditional face to face settings. Secondly, I would point to the finding that showed a combination of both face-to-face and online instruction yields the highest achievement gains. This is consistent with the message that I have been sharing with you that the role of the teacher is a critical component to student success even in online courses. Finally, I would advise you to not assume that all online course providers will offer the same level of instructional interaction and student engagement; two key elements of success in online learning.

Bruce Friend is a pioneer in K-12 online learning. As a founding member, teacher, and chief administrator of two state-wide virtual school programs, Bruce has considerable experience in providing online learning opportunities to home school students. In 2003, Bruce was honored with the Most Outstanding Achievement by an Individual Award by the U.S. Distance Learning Association. In recent years he has consulted with online program developers and families throughout the United States. He is currently the Director of SAS® Curriculum Pathways® (www.sascurriculumpathways.com). bruce.friend@sas.com.

Liz Perle is the Editor-in-Chief of CommonSense media

Kids admit they cheat with phones and the Internet

Cheating is as old as the sun. So the dispiriting results of Common Sense Media's June 2009 nationwide poll on cheating that surveyed middle and high school students didn’t really shock me. Among the juicier tidbits: A third of students admit they’ve used their cell phones for something other than phoning home (like taking pictures of answers or tests to share with their friends). And more than half said they’ve passed off something they found online as their own work. Kids admit to using high-tech ways to get around having to study (never mind that some of these strategies involve far more creativity and time investment than the tests they aim to outfox).

But what really alarmed me were kids' attitudes toward cheating. Call me old fashioned, but isn't cheating a bit like 2+2=4? You either get the equation right or you don't. You're either cheating or you aren't.  Not much gray area that I can see. But that’s not what the survey showed. Kids actually thought there were a range of offenses, from serious to “just helping yourself and a friend.” And I think technology lies at the heart of this.

Technology makes cheating tempting

Personal technologies have created massive leaps forward in our kids’ abilities to communicate, create, and collaborate. But they have an unintended consequence: They diminish the connection between action and consequence. Much of what goes on in digital life happens anonymously, which can make people think they can escape being caught. Remote access also lessens the sense of face-to-face responsibility. So what if you take a stranger’s paper and pass it off as your own? Then there’s the ease with which information can be found, captured, and sent to friends -- lots of them. Add to this an ability to communicate completely under parents' and teachers' radar, and you have a formula for kids thinking they can get away with less-than-ethical behavior.

We have to help kids create their own ethical world

As our kids create the content and the rules of this brave new world they'll live in, don’t they want a responsible society where people are who they say they are, write what they said they’ve written, and respect others' creativity? Right now, our kids’ technological abilities outstrip their judgment. It’s up to parents and teachers to remind this generation that they have a choice: They can create an honest, open Internet and mobile world, or they can create one in which they'll always have to be suspicious of what they find and who they know.

The choice is literally in their hands, since they’re creating their own ethical world one click or keyboard stroke at a time.

The study referred to in this article was a national poll Common Sense Media conducted in partnership with The Benenson Strategy Group, and is part of Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship Initiative. To download a white paper of this initiative, visit http://www.commonsensemedia.org/hi-tech-cheating.

Common Sense Media is the nation’s leading nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the impact of media on kids and families.

Caroline has the unique distinction of being both a student and teacher. She’s a student at the Harvard Grad school of Ed, where she work with Dr. Chris Dede and she is a teacher to myself and, I suspect, many others who are reading this blog, about the promise and potential of open-source computing and specifically Sugar. Welcome, Caroline! --Mark W.

How can we get Sugar—a learning platform designed specifically for elementary education—into the hands of as many students as possible and as efficiently as possible?

"Sugar on a Stick" is a new approach to this problem: the "stick" is a 1-GB USB storage device loaded with a bootable version of Sugar. Many schools in the US have already invested in computers for their classrooms and increasingly households also already have computers. But there are challenges to using these computers: old computers, fear of viruses, differences in what resources children have access to at home. Sugar on a Stick circumvents these problems, providing each student with the best learning platform available using different hardware at home, school or the library. And schools can leverage their previous investments (buying new laptops is not a likely scenario in the current economic climate).

Booting a computer with Sugar on a USB stick gives the student all the advantages of the Sugar platform—tools for expression, collaboration, and reflection—and yet it does not touch the host computer's hard-drive. In a school or library or home, this means you aren't changing anything on the existing computers: rebooting without the USB
stick gives you exactly the same computer and software as you had before.

The no-hard-drive-required feature expands computer purchasing and donation options; corporations can remove hard drives—and thus all sensitive data—before donating to a school.

The first pilot of Sugar on a Stick will begin this fall at the Gardner School, a pre-K to 5th-grade Boston Public school, located in Allston, just six blocks from the Harvard Business School. Gardner serves and ethnically diverse student population with more then 85% eligible for free lunch.

Heartfelt thanks to our previous bloggers. A careful albeit somewhat self-fulfilling review of your postings seems to reveal an emerging thread. One that, from my vantage point, indicates agreement that the best way forward is for schools to focus explicitly on the nature of teaching, especially the pedagogical content knowledge areas that comprise it (Shulman, 1986, 1987) and the role that computers can play in that process (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). Such focus entails education stakeholders answering some key questions.

• What is a school’s vision for teaching and learning?
• What does the research indicate about practices that contribute to attaining that vision?
• What has been the school’s experience with realizing its vision and carrying out those practices at scale? And how do computers serve the vision of the school by addressing the practice of better teaching and learning?

A genuine answering of these sorts of questions will help link the depth and quality of teachers’ knowledge and skill with their use of computers. I believe that when such linkages are in place enhancing teaching, learning, and increasing student achievement will be much more likely.

A variety of data points appear to indicate that many educational technology initiatives are falling short of achieving an aspiration for enhancing teaching, learning, and increasing student achievement at scale. I am not surprised that this is the case. According to Michael Fullan (1993, 1996, 2001) the failure to reach practice at scale can be explained away by the oft-documented fact that taking any educational practice to scale is a complex undertaking with a low probability of success.

As Alan Bain discusses in The Self-organizing School: Next Generation Comprehensive School Reforms (2007), attaining practice at scale typically assumes that stakeholders at a school (a) share a common understanding and concern about teaching, learning, and student achievement, (b) embrace specific approaches for improving performance, and (c) commit to the sustained use of those approaches along a trajectory from aspiration to practice. As research about the culture of schools indicates these assumptions are rarely present at scale (Mortimore, 2006; Sarason, 1996). Further, the lack of a shared school-level perspective appears to contribute to high levels of inconsistency, instability, and divisiveness within school-level practice (Dimmock & Hattie, 1994; Fink & Brayman, 2004; Walker & Dimmock, 1999). All of these points are borne out by numerous longitudinal studies of schools (Lortie, 2002; Goodlad, 2004; Sizer, 1997; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001).

My interpretation of this state of affairs is that in order for educational technology efforts to realize aspirations for enhancing teaching and learning at scale it makes more sense for advocates to focus on integrating technology into the practice of teaching rather than vice versa.

How does this jibe with what you are experiencing?