Michigan Educators Push for More Online Courses

Aloha kākou,

Cassie, Kel and I did a Blackboard Training session for DOE teachers who are partnering with Kauhale Kīpaipai to offer courses to newly hired DOE teachers. One of the questions a few teachers asked me was about how prevalent online courses for students were outside of Hawai`i. I think they were a little surprised at how rapidly it is growing and how soon, I think, it will become a norm and not an exception designed for only a very specific population of students. I came across this article this morning. I'm always interested in what is happening in the state of Michigan because when I first started working in ISC (a.k.a KSDL a.k.a VSDL :)) six years ago, Michigan had just passed a law mandating that all students pass at least one online course as a graduation requirement. You'll see in the article that Michigan now offers around 15,000 online courses. I think the interesting points in the article deal with changing laws and policies to keep up with the growing demand for online learning opportunities and how this demand will encourage law and policymakers to be innovative to meet the learning needs of their students which are similar discussions we also have on a much smaller scale with the DL Project Charter.

Kelly

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Kamehameha Schools Distance Learning (KSDL) Owau

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