Week 1 Reflection

Blog reflection: What did you learn this week that struck you as particularly important in learning about virtual schools? Has your thinking changed as a result of what you learned this week?

An important clarification that I learned this week was the distinction between virtual schools and virtual schooling. I've had some exposure to both but never made the distinction as clearly as the articles this week explained.  In my assessment, virtual schools are full-time educational programs whereas virtual schooling means supplementing traditional classroom work with online courses.  I gained a new perspective on how virtual schools and schooling can personalize education for students.  As discussed in Disrupting Class, Chapter 2, this personalization seems to be taking us back to "Job 2" of education - "Providing something for everyone" - where students chose from several distinct tracks. In the case of online schooling, students can choose from an almost unlimited number of tracks and programs which they design themselves.  I also value the opportunity that students have to access top quality instructors and to learn regardless of time, place, path or pace, as FLVS's motto states.  Finally, online learning seems to benefit students through more project-based, authentic instruction and learning assessment based on achievement rather than comparative performance. 


I very much enjoyed reading this chapter on disruptive innovation, having come from a corporate background where being disruptive in the industry was valued.  I worked for Sun Microsystems and could definitely relate to the goal of moving from the "back plane" to the "front plane".  In my early days at Sun (late 90's to early 00's) the motto was always "Sell Big Iron."  It was Sun's core product and innovation was clearly in a sustaining mode. However, over the years, we began to introduce products like Solaris x86, open source infrastructure software, and open hardware architectures.  These were disruptive innovations and the strategy became "SEOTT" which stood for "Sell Everything On The Truck".  In other words, don't focus just on the products with a higher margin, focus on products that build footprint and help us reinvent ourselves.  It was not easy and just as the article stated, it required separate business units to succeed.  Linux and the iPhone are great examples of disruptive innovations that started out slow (Linux and it's multiple distributions and SMARTphones in general) and exploded overnight to provide applications formerly reserved for back plane innovations.  I think this chapter is a fabulous overview of the growth of education in America and the problems we face today. NCLB is not going to cut it alone. We need online learning (a separate business unit, in effect) to make it work.


Finally, I just want to comment on the speculation in Disrupting Class, Chapter 4, that discusses the "looming teacher shortage."  First of all, where is it?  While I think that a lot of this chapter was on target, this portion clearly missed the mark.  From my perspective, and that of my unemployed teacher husband, we have no teaching shortage, we have a surplus!  I also wonder, as virtual schools and schooling expands, how the roles of teachers will change.  What will my job look like 10 years from now?  Is it something that I will even still have a passion for?  Also, what will a High School degree look like then?  Are we going back to the track-based model based on needs and interests?  Will everyone have a customized diploma?  And, if so, is this the way to get America back on track, and competitive again?