Online classes give students a digital edge | K-12 - Education Dive

"As online learning options grow, students exposed to digital classes may have an advantage" says Lauren Barack, Journalist & writer.

Photo: Flickr; Tanel Teemusk

Dive Brief:

• Summer school for students in California’s West Sonoma County Union High School District is now entirely online starting this year, a financial decision that shaved costs down by half.
• Students will be able to test out of lessons they don’t need, letting them finish more quickly — in some cases in two weeks instead of six, wrote The Press Democrat.
• The savings will be used to boost budgets at schools with a higher enrollment of English language learners and students from low-income families.

Dive Insight: 
Summer school is the punishment no child wants — forced to sit in a classroom during the warm months, as friends swim, bike and play outside. Shifting summer courses online — either remedial classes or electives — may help school districts save money (always appealing to budget-strapped educational departments), but also let children have some fun, without missing out on the extra learning they need. 

Knowing how to even take an online class is a digital skill itself, one every student should master, as the likelihood of them taking an internet-based course at some point in their education is growing. The number of students enrolled in some kind of distance learning course in college increased from 29.8% in the fall of 2015 to 31.7% in the fall of 2016, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. 
Read more...

Source: Education Dive