This isn't exactly homeschooling, but ... http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2...+KHz6Sg+OV6m7V++UsKWOQBOARqnTI&cmp=clp-edweek
From my experience, there are many problems with the way online courses are delivered today. 1) There's much too little interaction in the classroom. We've generally found that the level of course understanding is proportional to the amount of interaction in the classroom. Students must be challenged, and must challenge their peers. They must reach their own conclusions and not simply accept whatever is presented. This calls for lively online discussions in the classroom and within teams. Many online courses have zero interaction among students and little interaction with the instructor. 2) Course designers try to cram too much into each lesson. They assume that students can complete a reading assignment in half a day whereas it might take three or four times longer to truly digest the material (in general, reading assignments are far too ambitious). Then students need to be able to practice problems and work through them in detail and not just be dropped into an automated quiz - which is what usually happens. When a course is designed to be interactive, a full 50 percent of the time will likely go into discussions. In the early days, we expected students to do too much, but we've learned now what is reasonable. Quite frankly, it's better to err on the side of too little - while still focusing on frequent interaction. 3) The instructors don't spend as much time teaching in the virtual classroom as they do in the traditional classroom. For an online course to work well, they must spend at least as much time, if not more. Indeed, discussions can continue unabated into the night, and instructors should make themselves available over a generous schedule. Again, from my experience, some teachers see online courses as a reason to spend very little time with their students - which is a big mistake. 4) The technologies used to deliver online courses are often lacking - and/or course designers and instructors don't know how to use the technology effectively. For example, in one timed test (with our county's online school), one of our sons was expected to input a picture of his graph as part of a timed test. How was he expected to do that? He had no clue and panicked! Also, on one quiz, the timer obscured the 'Next' button so he couldn't progress to the next question. It's quite amazing how poor some of the better known online learning products really are. All of this, of course, is why we entered this field. There's no reason why online learning should be the poor cousin. Done well, it is at least as good as traditional learning. The technology that's used, however, must enhance the learning experience, not detract from it. And teachers need to be taught how to design and teach effective online courses - because right now many of them have no clue. Plus, to be more widely used, the cost of technology must be cut dramatically - which, again, is what we've done.
