Virtual learning expanding in R.I.

UP TO SPEED: Joe McNamara, left, principal of Pawtucket Alternative Learning Program, works with a student. Also a state representative, McNamara has proposed a statewide policy for online education. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON
UP TO SPEED: Joe McNamara, left, principal of Pawtucket Alternative Learning Program, works with a student. Also a state representative, McNamara has proposed a statewide policy for online education. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON

When it comes to virtual education using the latest technology, Rhode Island has some serious catching up to do when compared to other states. Progress is being made, however, in the form of initiatives now being proposed and/or refined by the R.I. Department of Education and the General Assembly.
The education department is advertising for a school willing to redesign and transform its educational programs through the use of technology and the department will award a $470,000 grant to that school for first-year implementation. Bills pending or to be proposed in the legislature would set a statewide virtual-education policy and govern the use of e-textbooks in place of traditional books.
Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist told Providence Business News that she envisions a statewide, computer-based system effecting “sweeping changes,” where the latest technology is used not only to supplement traditional learning techniques but “to dramatically improve the way we deliver instruction.”
“We’re not just looking at using technology as a tool,” she said, “but how schools can use it to significantly change their daily structure, their practices, so students can proceed at their own levels” of achievement. Schools in some states, she noted as one example of possible benefits, have managed to lengthen the school day at no extra cost through the use of computer-based instruction.
The education department has asked all districts, charter public schools and state-operated schools to apply for the $470,000 tech grant, with a March 23 deadline. The request asks for creation of a “technology-rich learning environment that fundamentally rethinks and restructures teaching and learning” through such initiatives as digital curriculum, gaming and flexible scheduling.
Both elementary and secondary schools are welcome to apply, Gist said, with implementation slated for the 2012-2013 school year and further refinement in 2013-2014. Funds for the grant come from a federal fund for education technology.
In conjunction with this proposal and other virtual-education initiatives, RIDE is holding a conference Feb. 11 at Rhode Island College, open to the public, featuring national experts, including educators from Maine, which aggressively is implementing virtual-education techniques. More information on the conference can be found on the RIDE website, www.ride.ri.gov. Data compiled for the International Association for K-12 Online Learning show that, as of 2010-11, 40 states have virtual schools or state-led, online-learning initiatives. Virtual schools nationwide had a course enrollment of 536,000 and 30 states, plus Washington, D.C., had at least one full-time, online school operating, with approximately 250,000 students enrolled.
New Hampshire, for instance, has a virtual online-learning academy – a charter high school – founded in 2007 that graduated its first class in June 2010, offering part- and full-time, online-learning opportunities with an enrollment of about 3,000 students. Arizona and California were other states that Gist said are exploring “exciting” virtual-education models.
Although there are pockets of virtual-education activity, Rhode Island has no online school and limited online courses in existing public and charter schools, with no statewide policy in place for online education.
Rep. Joseph M. McNamara, a Warwick Democrat who often proposes legislation related to education, has submitted a bill now before the House Health Education and Welfare Committee, which he chairs, that would establish a statewide policy for online education. He is employed as principal of the 120-student Pawtucket Alternate Learning Program, housed in a Main Street school building.
The six-page measure would establish criteria for school districts to use when offering online courses, set standard cost parameters, identify procedures for quality assurance and evaluation and require development of a contract for school districts to use with organizations that produce and offer virtual-education courses. The education commissioner would be responsible for developing specific guidelines.
McNamara indicated that his rationale for proposing the bill stems in part from his own experience at the four-year, alternate-learning high school where, he said, every student is required to take at least one virtual-education course every year. He said the courses are “rigorous” and aligned with the state’s common-core standards, which school districts across the state are now in the process of adopting. But he maintained that other schools might use virtual courses not in line with common core and that is one problem his policy would help correct.
Virtual education takes place every day at the alternate-learning school, he said, and it is common to hear students say that they’ll be in “virtual,” rather than English or math class for a certain period. The Pawtucket School Department summer school is totally online, McNamara said.
He has yet to meet with RIDE officials about his bill, but will do so he said after the Feb. 11 summit. He does not see virtual education in quite the same sweeping terms that Gist does, suggesting it as a supplement to ongoing education techniques and thus most useful in helping students make up lost academic credits. He sees the proposed policy as applying mostly to secondary rather than elementary schools.
Planning another legislative initiative are Rep. Joy Hearn, a Barrington Democrat, and Sen. Edward J. O’Neill, a Lincoln independent, co-chair the Commission to Study the Purchase and Use of Textbooks, which is studying the possibility of replacing traditional textbooks with e-textbooks.
Hearn told PBN the commission will submit legislation to govern the use of e-textbooks in the classroom and right now is taking “an exciting look at what’s going on around the country.” Virtual education, she noted, is “the direction education is going” and “we’re very supportive of that.”
Apple recently announced a major foray into the e-textbook business, unveiling on Jan. 19 three free applications through its iBooks program to increase availability of the virtual tomes. An industry analyst, Global Equities Research, reported Jan. 23 more than 350,000 downloads in the first three days of availability, according to PCMag.com. &#8226

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