Online Learning Report Enlightens

If you haven't read the report on K-12 online learning by the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL), you should take a look. It details the remarkable growth in online education in elementary grades across the nation and examines fundamental questions about online learning, including the biggest question of all: does it work?

Online Classes Meet Many Needs

The report notes that most online educational programs use highly qualified teachers, learning management software, and digital course content to meet a range of student needs. The most common reason school districts cite for introducing online learning is to provide a wider range of courses, particularly advanced courses for which teachers are in short supply.

Online Learning Successful
NACOL reports that "the research suggests that online education is as good as or better than face-to-face teaching and learning." Using results from the 2005-2006 school year, NACOL notes that the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), Ohio’s largest charter eSchool with over 7,000 students statewide, moved into the Continuous Improvement category ahead of most of the state’s urban school districts in achievement. For the 2006-2007 school year, many of Ohio's public school districts used ECOT’s online practice tests to prepare their students for the testing.

IQity contributes to success

The ECOT charter school was the first to use IQity's learning management suite as the foundation for its online school. The Ohio Graduation Test study guides and practice tests that are part of the IQity learning management suite are now widely used to help both online students and those in bricks-and-mortar schools prepare for the state's standardized test, which students must pass to graduate high school.

IQity's award-winning curriculum is aligned with state standards, increasing student's potential to pass the graduation test. Soon teachers will be able to choose from a limitless variety of lessons aligned with state standards in the REACTOR learning object database.