FInal blog post

At the beginning of the class, I had a skeptical view of online schooling and what it had to offer. There is a lot of hype on the subject in conferences, journals and even in the popular news. Also, as a teacher I value the physical classroom and its ability to give me an interesting place to work and a way to make my living.  I don't want to teach at home in my pajamas,  like going to a physical place and I really feel strongly that kids need face to face interactions in order to grow up and be sensible, functioning human beings.
After going through this course and seeing the many options that online schooling has to offer, I am still skeptical, a little less afraid, more open to teach in my pajamas, but still holding to the idea that kids need physical contact in order to develop. A number of different uses of online schooling make really basic sense to me.  Using online schooling for the underachieving who need to make work up and the over achieving who want to take things beyond what a normal school has to offer makes sense and we have seen several instances where that is working ( and several where it is not). I can see the "home school kid" fitting in really well to many of the good online schools that we looked at.  I can even see where online schooling can make a difference in a regular face-to-face school where scheduling can be difficult in order to deliver what kids want or need.
The most evident thing that I found after this course is that online schooling offers some nice hard data on how kids are really doing on a more objective basis than one teacher in one classroom.  I think this will lead to a more efficient education. So many new reform efforts are geared toward cramming stuff - new curriculum, new methods, etc. - into the classroom. Online education can be a way to unpack the classroom. Having more input from different people to assist kids. I can also see if we were able to deliver some courses such as math, on more of an online asynchronous basis, we could have kids progress through course more at their own speed rather than the average speed of all the learners in the room.  I see many opportunities for using blended instruction to maximize good face-to-face time.  Overall, we are still in the early stages of online schooling and more research needs to be done.