Digital Revolution

This from the New York Times
November 7,2010

"Across the country, online education is exploding: 4.6 million students took a college-level online course during fall 2008, up 17 percent from a year earlier, according to the Sloan Survey of Online Learning. A large majority — about three million — were simultaneously enrolled in face-to-face courses, belying the popular notion that most online students live far from campuses, said Jeff Seaman, co-director of the survey. Many are in community colleges, he said. Very few attend private colleges; families paying $53,000 a year demand low student-faculty ratios.
Colleges and universities that have plunged into the online field, mostly public, cite their dual missions to serve as many students as possible while remaining affordable, as well as a desire to exploit the latest technologies.
At the University of Iowa, as many as 10 percent of 14,000 liberal arts undergraduates take an online course each semester, including Classical Mythology and Introduction to American Politics.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, first-year Spanish students are no longer offered a face-to-face class; the university moved all instruction online, despite internal research showing that online students do slightly less well in grammar and speaking."

Rhein Watch Trend Tracker comment.
eLearning is changing the way we teach and the trend will continue as a public demands efficiency in every aspect of human endeavor. This is particularly true as public schools keep increasing their demands on real estate taxpayers, and continue to use archaic academic structures.
Consider the amount of money that could be saved by the elimination of school buses . Think of costs that could be eliminated by redesigning schools to accommodate a more eLearning friendly platform. This trend is inevitable as we convert from an analog world to one where most almost everything is digital.
This has meaningful portent for Focus WHSN (world high school news). The Website still under development is going to make every iPad into a fountain of learning–portable and manageable and fun.
Each issue of focus will be planned as a supplement to the curriculum it every high school class and course.
Bring it on.