in many cases, asynchronous learning is already happening in our schools, whether we like it or not. It’s almost impossible to deliver face-to-face content that isn’t directly or indirectly assisted by tools that bring an asynchronous element to the learning process. This is important to note because technology isn’t going away, and we’re better off as a profession being strategic and purposeful about the tools at our disposal. Perhaps Mr. Hill could build on the asynchronous efforts going on around him and make his very good class even better. Of course, doing so will force him to carefully consider how to plan and develop his new online curriculum.
How to Plan and Develop an Online Curriculum
Developing an online curriculum that facilitates DEL requires you to think deeper about the nuts and bolts of your digital learning environment. The way in which the curriculum is presented makes a big difference in the degree to which the facilitator can personalize and tweak instruction to meet individual student needs. It also makes a difference in the way facilitators use and administer assignments and assessments in the course. Consider the following questions about curriculum and planning.
■ Did someone else already establish and write your digital learning curriculum? If so, you are working with a curriculum that some other instructional designer from your area established. It may even come from an outside vendor who created a program that your school utilizes. In this case, your focus is on how to facilitate, further illuminate, and enhance what is already there.
■ Is the curriculum open shell? With an open shell option, your school provides the course shell and the instructor engages in the planning, design, and delivery of instruction. Clearly this is a more challenging option. However, we also think that this is an option that drives the deepest level of innovation. Since the mid-2000s, many schools have successfully utilized prepackaged curricula; however, we believe that, as our culture becomes increasingly comfortable with digital learning options, schools will become more adroit at designing and delivering their own digital learning experiences. Without question, engaging in the design and development of digital learning experiences always enhances the process of working with colleagues to share ideas on planning and innovation strategies.
■ Who can join? Most DEL platforms fall into one of two categories of membership: open or closed.
♦ When membership is open for a digital learning experience, it includes learners who come together from a broad or potentially limitless geographic location (DuFour & Reason, 2016). A massive open online course (often called a MOOC) is just one example of a type of digital learning experience that is available to anyone, with participants allowed to engage the learning in almost any way that meets their needs (Crow, 2013).
♦ A closed digital learning experience includes students from either a previously established learning group, such as an existing German 4 class that elects to work together online, or a recognized group of students who are assigned to a particular digital learning experience. Under this permutation, students may know one another before the learning experience, and the participants are derived from an organized grouping, such as from their local school or a charter school digital academy (DuFour & Reason, 2016). Most of the strategies in this book work most directly with this second, more common, K–12 closed digital learning option. Both options, however, have their place in online learning environments.
Given these differences, developing a curriculum that facilitates digital learning experiences represents a diverse set of challenges. Nuanced distinctions will emerge because of these different delivery formats and decision points, and we have constructed our recommendations in this book with these variances in mind. You will notice that we occasionally call out these differences and describe how facilitators may have to change their approach based on the differences in delivery we describe. However, for the most part, we assemble approaches that work in most of the aforementioned settings.
With this established, all the careful planning in the world may not mean much if the people using these online learning environments cannot work together with the provided tools.
Technophiles and Technophobes: Ending the Cage Match
Technophobes are those who fear and abhor the use of technology. Technophiles, on the other hand, wildly embrace it (Burnett, 2004). In your school, you may have noticed multiple collisions between technophiles and technophobes. These collisions happen in most any educational environment when it comes time to grapple with new opportunities to support student learning. Technophiles tend to seek every opportunity possible to digitize the learning experience, while technophobes fight them every inch of the way, claiming that valuable learning resources are lost if digital learning platforms take precedence.
We, the authors of this book, are certainly not technophobes. However, we do not consider ourselves uncompromising technophiles either. Our passion is learning. To that end, we do not believe technology is the answer to every question. We believe that solid, strategic, research-based pedagogy should be at the center of what we do and, whenever possible, we should utilize whatever implements are available to enhance that process. Thankfully, learning pedagogy has plenty of support from the emergence of numerous digital learning innovations (Amory, 2012). If we were to referee this cage match, we would tell the technophiles and technophobes that grappling over technology is fruitless and that a balanced approach will let them both turn their focus where it belongs—on learning.
Regardless of your outlook, technology has a clear and vital role to play in facilitating distance-based learning.
Program Options for Learning at a Distance
Although learning at a distance is growing in popularity, we must keep in mind that technology is not only changing the learning possibilities associated with facilitating experiences online but also program delivery options thanks to emergent technology, new, rapidly developing programs allow schools to reach learners and support their learning in unique ways, depending on their needs. Consider these eight institutional options in relation to the delivery of digital learning.
1. Totally digital virtual schools: In 2014, there were 135 full-time virtual charter schools in twenty-three states, enrolling over 180,000 students (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, 2016). These schools are 100 percent virtual in their curriculum delivery.
2. Charter schools: With so many charter schools emerging with highly specialized, topical points of focus, there are obviously several occasions in which a distance learning option can be of great benefit. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (2016) estimates that in the United States there are as many as 6,400 charter schools in existence, several them offered all or in part online.
3. Homeschooling: There are more than 1.5 million homeschooled students in the United States (Snyder, de Brey, & Dillow, 2016). With the growing popularity of homeschooling, communities have established parental best-practice groups that work together to help ensure that parents provide competitive curriculum offerings for home-educated learners. Distance learning opportunities, which can represent all or part of curriculum delivery, increasingly fortify these home-based options.
4. Alternative schools or credit recovery programs: Since the 1960s, schools have attempted to come up with new and unique programs designed to help learners with alternative learning options and credit recovery (Raywid, 1999). These programs can be offered all or in part online. During the 2009–2010 school year, 88 percent of U.S. districts offered students credit recovery courses (Powell, Roberts, & Patrick, 2015). In New Hampshire, the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School offers sixty-two online competency-based credit recovery classes. Interestingly, research shows that online credit recovery programs often cost less than traditional programs and typically offer students a high degree of flexibility in
