More Pupils Are Learning Online, Fueling Debate on Quality

"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.