K-12 Distance Education

The article by Tom Clark included a great deal of information that is difficult to summarise in any small report. As a general discussion of distance education in the K-12 environment, the historical trends were interesting. There seems to have been a push for education to take advantage of new dominant communication technologies each time there is a breakthrough. Radio, television, and the internet are examples. In my opinion, the noble part of all of the pushes for developments in distance education technologies for K-12 students is the desire to bring the benefits of education to all children in the nation, and also to improve the quality of education.

With all the data presented in the article, it seems logical to predict that distance education and in particular online education in K-12 will continue to spread, and continue to improve as technology continues to improve. There will probably be a desire to use online education with younger audiences. Until the present, distance education in K-12 has mostly been for high school, with some middle school level content. It is likely that opportunities will increase for elementary grade children to participate in online education.

With this in mind, the questions that I am left pondering include: at what age does online education become an option, what are the issues with younger age chilren? are the issues changing with the avances of technology and the prominence of technology in the home? what are the politics involved in questions of elementary aged children learning online? how much human interaction is really needed for the different aged children? is there an age at which close interaction is less needed? could young children learn to read and write without close human attention and human to human stimulus?

I feel that the biggest issues to deal with as the potential for change appears are the paradigms and traditions that are sometimes good and at other times hold us back. The education systems are permeated by such paradigms, traditions and opinions, and that may hold back the potential in K-12 distance education that the modern era of technology brings.