Joanne Laucius, reporter at the Ottawa Citizen says, Last week, the provincial government announced that secondary school
students will be required to take four out of the 30 high school credits
required for an Ontario high school diploma as online courses.
The announcement had few details, except that the changes will be
phased in starting in 2020-21 and the delivery of all e-learning courses
will be centralized. However, if the province goes ahead with plans to
make four courses mandatory, Ontario high school students will have more
compulsory e-learning than any other jurisdiction in the world.
So
what is e-learning? A necessary skill for the 21st century or a way for
the province to save money on education? We asked experts what they
expect from the reforms.
How does e-learning currently work in Ontario?
According
to the Canadian eLearning Network, an estimated 65,000 Ontario
elementary and secondary students from public, Catholic, francophone and
independent schools took at least one online course in 2017-18.
The
public education advocacy group People for Education estimated that
five per cent of students for every high school are enrolled in at least
one online course...
What happens in an online course?
Teachers
create assignments and moderate interactions between students using
electronic technologies such as message boards. While students often
have flexibility in terms of when they log into the course, many schools
recognize that it’s a good idea for students to spend time in the
library, said Alexander. The majority of students who take online
courses are in Grades 11 and 12 and are looking for more course
offerings than are available at their school, she said.
Read more...
Source: Ottawa Citizen