Recently, I have experienced the intriguing challenge of courses selection for the high school kids. With increasing competition to the best possible colleges, high school kids tend to go for as many advanced classes as possible, often leaving fundamental classes like Physical Education, Civics and the like as second citizens. Ironically, high school graduation requirement is not about the advanced classes, but the fundamental classes. To achieve graduations and have an impressive transcript, some turns to summer courses, or online offerings.
How effective are the summer courses or online offerings? Well, it depends on the objectives, which are not necessarily aligned among the students, parents and teachers.
If the goal is to checkmark the completion of something, online courses are probably the most effective. Fortunate or unfortunate, it is often what the students want for classes that are required but not what their interests lie. The benefits of online courses are obvious, just to name a few, it allows different paces, it can be done quicker, it allows multi-tasking, it can accept a lot of students, and it is not bound by the physical location of the students. A recent online class offered by Harvard related to Clinical Trials has over 20,000 enrollments, and from 175 countries; no classroom can cover so many grounds, not even close.
Yet, are the students learning as effectively? This is where the teachers and parents are not as stoked. Common doubts arise – “are the students paying attention?” or “is it even that the students taking the classes?” After my completion of many online courses, these are not the only valid concerns either. In online courses, it is also possible “the urgency of completion takes over the time and effort required to learn about the subjects”, leading to students paging through material rapidly, with “retrying quiz until correct” syndrome. Some subjects just need the time and hands-on practice drill to get to that “eureka” moment. Speedy completion is like building a house on sand. So we cannot challenge the skepticism of some educators on the online courses.
The trend is likely to continue with more students opting for cl
asses online whenever possible, especially for those they do not enjoy. There is a long way to go for the maturity of online courses to address the concerns. And questions remain how traditional schools fulfill basic educational needs, like good citizen ship, good health and living habits, effectively.
Whatever it is, there are going to be more and more choices in education. And that is a good thing.
oliviatamccue 
I saw news lots of K-12 schools are deploying Chromebook for students. Did you see the same in Bay Area?
Bay Area, with its proximity to Google HQ, has similar trend, on technology adoption at the grade schools. Chrome book being one.
The experience of Chrome book in my children’s school is mildly disappointing. It runs into connection issue; and even after the network is ok, the lack of app. on the Chrome book makes it not very useful. And Chrome OS is not considered as top of the line either. At this stage, iPad and MacBook is more successful in school.
Does Google care, probably not? With the low price of a Chrome book, it can also be said that the expectation should be set low as well. Should Google care? maybe, as this initial perception of the school kids to the products can shape their future like/dislike of the products from the company as well.