The current gap in technology knowledge and lack of leadership preparation related to digital literacy for school environments can cause serious problems, as school leaders, parents, and broader social communities are currently realizing. The authors describe strategies for educational leaders to prepare their stakeholder groups for a digital…

K-12 special education policies and practices that ensure students with disabilities receive a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment are coming under pressure from the rapid expansion of online learning. Forty-six state and non-state jurisdiction special education directors responded to a brief survey about K-12…

This article presents a case study of the adoption and use of open textbooks by three high school teachers in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The textbooks, collaboratively authored and distributed through the South African initiative, Siyavula, are available online and are openly licensed, allowing teachers to freely use, modify,…

There are comparatively few studies on one-to-one tutoring in online settings, even though it has been found to be an effective model. This paper explores student-student online coaching from the coach perspective. The empirical case is the project Math Coach, where K-12 students are coached by teacher students using instant messaging. This…

Less than half of the students in the United States graduate from high school and are ready to take college-level math courses. Many years and varieties of remedial math programs have failed to dramatically improve outcomes, especially at scale. The question we face is whether technology in general, and open educational resources in particular,…

Encouraging continuous improvement in the quality, scale and breadth of online education, the Sloan Consortium invites practitioners to share effective practices. This report synthesizes effective practices submitted by Sloan-C members to the online collection at http://www.sloanconsortium.org/effective as of December 2011. The synthesis includes…

Research conducted in various settings suggests that preparation and support for online instructors should be considered separately from comparable efforts for instructors in face-to-face environments. However, few studies provide empirical data that outline the ways in which preparation to teach online should differ, and only a handful link these…

Given the importance of administrative attention to blended learning, this article adumbrates the institutional benefits but also the institutional challenges of this integration of online and on-campus instruction. The reasons for engaging in blended learning determine how it will play out, so the "why" is given precedence over the "how." But…

The purpose of this article is to examine online learning at the macro level in terms of its impact on American K-12 and higher education. The authors draw on six years of data that they have collected through national studies of online learning in American education as well as related research to do a critical and balanced analysis of the…

Every child has a right to an education. In the United States, the issue is not necessarily about access to a school but access to a quality education. With strict compulsory education laws, more than 50 million students enrolled in primary and secondary schools, and billions of dollars spent annually on public and private education, American…