Last week’s visit by the team from Edison Learning was eye-opening. I thought Professor Kim’s rule that eLearning most helps those at the tails of achievement was particularly true for the virtual high school the team described; I think it would be a weak education for most students, but for special populations—teenage mothers, advanced athletes, and kids who live very far from schools, eLearning could be a savior, especially because of the modularity and personalization the Edison system allows.
Some other observations:
• At one point the curriculum director described a virtual game of sorting concepts into appropriate bins as an example of kinesthetic learning! That’s setting the bar pretty low; if that’s kinesthetic, then writing with a pencil is kinesthetic! I don’t know what the exact definition should be, but certainly it needs to be more full-body than clicking a mouse.
• It seemed that most of the assessments were pure recall, Bloom’s lowest form of learning. Papert’s idea of Constructionism (an extension of Constructivism) comes to mind: we learn through not only interaction with the world, but by making things. I’m not talking about drama, art, and music (though those would be good for students as well); I’m thinking of creative assessments for core classes, in which a student creates an object or experience that reflects newly learned material. The Edison team mentioned that for English, the students wrote essays, but where are the science projects, the historical timelines, the math visualizations, the social studies skits? If all a student does is digest and regurgitate information, I believe they are getting a false model of what true learning entails. A simple digital show and tell (using for example the Nokia cell cameras employed in East Palo Alto, or video Skype) could enable assessment of these more creative assignments.
• I was disappointed that the video module used a (fairly poorly rendered) virtual character instead of a human being. These students spend many hours in front of a computer screen; why not give a more human presence to their lessons?
• The full scope of what they’ve created is impressive. Full content and assessment for dozens and dozens of high school classes; a live tutoring system; a technology delivery infrastructure. It’s a very complex enterprise.
• The team remarked that 90% of the Education World is against for-profit schools. I think that diversity is probably quite good for the school system in general; let a thousand flowers bloom, and then remove the weeds. However, it is a bit disconcerting that, left with say 100K in a regional budget, Edison would take that money and give it back to shareholders instead of spending it on student programs. Their profit motive encourages them to give only the bare acceptable minimum to students, not the absolute maximum that their budget will allow, as in public or even most private schools. That said, the team who presented seemed genuinely passionate about their product and about improving it for the students. I wouldn’t want my child to attend, but for many students, I’m sure it’s a lifeline back into education.
