My copy of the Summer, 2009 issue of the Journal of Research on Technology in Education arrived this week, and I’m thrilled to get it! Some of the articles appearing this issue include the following:

1. K-12 Distance Educators at Work: Who’s Teaching Online Across the United States
2. Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Learning Activity Types: Curriculum-based Technology Integration Reframed
3. Teachers’ Beliefs and Technology Practices: A Mixed-methods Approach
4. Comparing Self-paced and Cohort-based Online Courses for Teachers

Of the ones listed here, #s 1 and 4 caught my immediate interest as practically relevant. Having read so many articles about items 2 and 3, I must confess to being jaded as to how we could reframe tech integration in any way that would work, or that teacher beliefs and tech practices would actually gel to brush away old, ineffective approaches. However, I’ll be reading them anyways…I noticed a highly esteemed colleague, Dr. Judy Harris, was one of the authors of article #2.

Here are my notes on K-12 Distance Educators at Work: Who’s Teaching Online Across the United States by Leanna Archambault and Kent Crippen. Again, these are the points that jump out at me, not necessarily the best of the article. Any inaccuracies are mine.

1. Data suggest that aspects of teaching online, such as the number of classes/students, student motivation, and lack of support, can be overwhelming at times.
2. Allen and Seaman (2006) developed specific definitions:
   Online – Course where most or all of the content is delivered online. At least 80% of seat time is replaced by online activity.
   Blended/hybrid – Course that blends online and face to face delivery. Between 30 and 79% of the content is delivered online.
   Web-facilitated – Course that uses web-based technology to facilitate a face to face course. Between 1 and 29% of the content is delivered online.
3. During 2002-2003, approx one third of public school districts (36%) had students enrolled in online distance education courses, 68% of students attended high schools, 29% attended combined or ungraded schools, 2% attended middle or junior high schools and 1% attended elementary schools.
4. The vast majority of American school districts are providing some form of online learning for their students and more plan to do so within the next 3 years.
5. An estimated 600K-700K K-12 public school students were engaged in online learning in 2005-2006, and this figure increased approximately 1,030,000 students during the 2007-2008 school year. This represents a 47% increase in enrollments in two years and these figures are expected to increase.
6. It may be that those involved in teaching online have a stronger interest in issues related to educational technology and that this background better prepares them for teaching in an online environment. Another major area for graduate degrees held was educational leadership/administration.
7. 54% of respondents stated they were regular full-time teachers, 36% reported they were part-time teachers who also taught either at another online school or in a traditional face to face environment. 6^ reported another role in addition to teaching within their school, such as an administrator, curriculum specialist, instructional designer, or staff developer.
8. Traditional subjects that were reportedly taught online were evenly distribution among math, science, language arts/reading, social studies and humanities.
9. Majority of online teachers surveyed reported teaching at the high school level (9-12), followed by middle school grades 6-8, and finally at the elementary level (PK-5).
10. Specific classes online within the field of English/language arts include American literature, British literature, composition, writing, journalism, publications, mythology, science fiction/fantasy, and creative writing. Math courses were made of pre-algebra, algebra I and II, geometry, precalculus, calc, trig, consumer math. Science and social studies courses also appear….
11. The ongoing struggle for traditional schools to find qualified math teachers is also felt by online schools.
12. 80% reported teaching their entire class online with the majority of face to face instruction replaced by online activity.
13. Hybrid classes with 30-79% of the clas taught online were reported by 7% of online teachers.
14. 13% indicated that their classes were Web-facilitated with 1-29% of instruction taking place online.
15. 81% of online teachers reported that their instruction took place asynchronously, as there was no specific time that their students were required to be online to receive instruction.
16. 12% of online teachers responded that there were certain specific times when their students had to be online to receive brief instruction.
17. 6% stated that instruction took place synchronously and that their students were required to login at predetermined times to receive complete instruction.
18. The majority of K-12 online teachers reported having a positive overall experience and shared a number of benefits, including not having to deal with the frustrating aspects of the traditional classroom such as classroom management.
19. Lack of support, number of errors in curriculum, lack of student discipline to complete assignments at an appropriate time, low pay, difficult programs and lack of technical support, the number of different classes (5) made it difficult to prepare effectively, poor student effort to improve, lack of support from student’s schools, no little parent involvement….
20. Online teachers reported a higher incidence of master’s degrees, at 62% vs 41% of traditional teachers. Also 13% of online teachers reported having degrees and certifications beyond or in addition to a master’s degree, as opposed to 7% of traditional teachers.
21. Many major virtual schools….require 3 years of teaching experience in a specific content area as well as state certification and high qualifications.
22. Updating teacher education programs so that they address not only pedagogical issues in traditional environments, but also aspects of online pedagogy, how classroom management changes in an online setting, and how best to use modern technological tools to convey content and assess student understanding should be the aim of leading and innovative colleges of education.

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