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Posted: February 25, 2012 at 2:02 pm
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Bill to rewrite controversial online education law advances
Posted: at 2:02 pm
A bill that would rewrite a new, controversial online education law advanced out of committee Friday evening.
Advocates of HB147 say it would help schools offer online courses more cost-efficiently. But opponents say it would mean less choice for students.
The bill would repeal a law created last year that allows high school students to take up to two classes online from other districts and charter schools, instead of at their regular high schools. Under that law, school districts must send about $727 for each full-year course a student takes from a provider outside his home district to the provider.
HB147 would rewrite that law, still allowing students to take two online courses but only from their own school districts or own charters or an outside entity with which a school district chooses to contract. Under HB147, school districts would be required to contract with at least one outside entity other than the Electronic High School (which would continue to offer free online classes), to provide courses.
Bill sponsor Rep. Brad Last, R-Hurricane, said many school districts and charters are now worried that they’re paying more to outside providers per student than they’re receiving. He said his bill would remove "one of the real disincentives" for schools to put their kids in online classes because they would no longer have to pay providers $727 a class, instead negotiating their own prices with whomever they chose to contract.
It was a bill a number of school district and charter school leaders spoke in support of Friday.
"If we’re going to sit here and say, ‘We’re not going to do anything. We’re going to let [the current online education law] roll on,’ we’re going to bankrupt schools completely," said Heidi Ross with the Tooele School District.
Royce Van Tassell with the Utah Taxpayers Association, however, opposed the bill, saying that it would mean less choice for students, as they would no longer be allowed to take online courses from any other district or charter in the state.
"By having a wide variety of access to all the options in the state, we can ensure parents will be able to partner their students with programs that help them the most," said Judi Clark, executive director of Parents for Choice in Education.
She also noted that lawmakers are already considering a separate bill to change the cost structure for online classes under the current law, though opponents of that bill say the prices it sets are still too high.
The committee passed HB147 by 9-2, meaning it now heads for the House floor.
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Bill to rewrite controversial online education law advances
Starting Up: ‘Education Trendwheel’ The online educator – Video
Posted: February 24, 2012 at 2:45 pm
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Starting Up: 'Education Trendwheel' The online educator - Video
Introducing Reuniting Raptors – Video
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THE STORY OF Cosmetics (2010) – Video
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THE STORY OF Cosmetics (2010) - Video
Opinion: Online courses next step in education | Column
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I don’t know how orange it is, but you know what’s a pretty big idea? Free online university-level courses over the web. The implications of this medium of education are astounding, and everyone should be extremely excited about it, despite the fact that the potential is largely marginalized by the very institutions who sponsored the idea.
The very first example of open course ware is traced back to 1999 when the University of Tubingen in Germany released videos of lectures online; but the most influential point of origin would have to be when MIT spearheaded its OpenCourseWare initiative, which has released course materials for about 2,000 classes in most major fields and is purported to have benefited and supplemented the education of over 100 million people world-wide. Since then, several other colleges like Stanford and Berkeley have come to the fore with their own ideas about class structure and availability. For example, Stanford makes you pay for degrees and certificates online that cost up to $60,000, but pretty much everyone involved offers the ability to peruse course materials for free without certification or predetermined structure.
But it isn’t just the large institutions that are exploring this new idea. Small teams of motivated and benevolent professors are embracing the golden rule of the Internet that remains so foreign to most businesses: The more free and easy-to-use a quality, in-demand service is, the more it benefits everyone involved. Exclusivity on the Internet is, in general, only for people who don’t want to see their ideas reach their full influence or potential. Be it in the form of unpretentious YouTube videos that keep people coming for the real thing or free online classes that grade and give out certificates for free, the freedom and availability of the Internet is itself a business model — or more generally, a model for success, be that measured in human benefit or money through influence — that slapping on fees and limitations can only diminish.
The sheer potential of the audience itself keeps the threshold for money, influence and change at its maximum (Facebook/Google/everything successful on the Internet that has fundamentally changed culture), and exclusivity tends to lower it — and in general closes the infinite network of doors that is the whole power and appeal of the Internet in the first place. What’s so counter-intuitive about this idea? Everyone can get to Stanford’s courses and seminar’s page online, but how many people are going to pay $995 just to audit one course? Stanford’s got the ease-of-use principle down — the website is a joy to navigate and you can pretty much learn about the commitment you’re making and jump into it in about 10 minutes max of reading and clicking — but structured, no-credit courses at no cost that draw large audiences are supposed to be what this educational movement is about. However, Stanford seems to be adapting to free education as a long-term goal by offering 17 interactive courses online for no cost.
One member of a small team pushing for the progress of free education is Sebastian Thrun, research professor of computer science at Stanford, who was featured in an NPR article on the subject (“Stanford Takes Online Schooling to the Next Level”). Using $200,000 of his own money, he recently founded the website Udacity.com which, I’ll grant them, has the audacity of offering two structured, comprehensive and applied (meaning you’ll actually be learning and using code and stuff) computer science courses that offer final grades, for free, with more to come. Sounds a lot better than taking a computer science course here and being forced to help UT finish paying off their new engineering building by getting $400 slapped gracelessly on your tuition.
I can’t program or code. I’m frankly terrified by the very idea. But I enrolled in the Udacity class and am taking it (you should too), and there’s something wonderfully soothing and freeing about this process. It feels like a world nestled between effective collegiate structure and the romance of autodidacticism. Who needs credit when there’s nothing stopping you from using and applying high-value skills you’ve acquired from some of the finest sources, at no cost? As an American, it’s a direct solution to my watered-down, limited high school experience that didn’t introduce any of these hyper-relevant concepts to me. As an empathetic world citizen, it’s just as direct a solution to the lack of quality global education. As a hypothetical college dean who is both prudent and forward-thinking, I’m more concerned with being a part of the long-term educational conversation than I am with short-term economic paranoias.
— Wiley Robinson is a junior in ecology and environmental studies. He can be reached at rrobin23@utk.edu.
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Opinion: Online courses next step in education | Column
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Lightning Safety Online Training Course Sample – Video
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Lightning Safety Online Training Course Sample - Video
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How To Be A Great Online Marketer [Online Business Report #8] – Video
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How To Be A Great Online Marketer [Online Business Report #8] - Video