I am happy to include a guest post from Estelle Shumann today:

Online and digital education programs are sweeping into classrooms across the country. While many students want to take exclusively online college courses, that is not necessarily an option however, schools are moving more towards the digital end of the education spectrum. Even students as young as kindergarten are getting into the act, with innovative programs and systems known as “blended learning.” Home schools, rural schools, and traditional K-12 schools are bringing technology and computers into the classroom, for purposes as simple as email communications and posting schedules, or as complex as participating in networked student projects in real time with students and teachers in foreign countries.

But educators are still struggling with deciding how, when and for whom these blended courses will be most beneficial.They are testing and experimenting to strike the right balance between a combination of hands-on computer time and face to face classroom lectures. The combination of classroom and computer-based learning is known commonly as blended learning. Schools and universities across the country are integrating this style of teaching into their course offerings.

In the 2010-2011 school year, a kindergarten in Los Angeles that is part of the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) charter school network began using computers with their youngest students. During the school year, the children worked on laptops 2 times a day for half an hour each time, giving them the ability to work at their own pace through individualized computer instruction. KIPP was pleased with the results, as the computers allowed the students to learn at their own pace and, most important, they were motivated to learn.

With schools budgets being cut during hard economic times, the ability for the students to independently work on a computer allows teachers to better manage larger classes. In addition, the students who use computers for a portion of their curriculum at this age are developing computer savvy and skills for the future, a valuable skill in and of itself. While it is too early to tell how great a success the year had been, since the children did not go through any standardized testing, those who worked with the program were optimistic and they have introduced the model to other classrooms in the KIPP network this school year.

A program that has been very successful in Charlottesville, Virginia, is called Blended Learning to Advance Student Thinking (BLAST). When deciding on purchasing textbooks a few years ago, school officials decided to get them in digital form and ensure that the students would have access to them through school-provided tablets. The $2.4 million project provided for the purchase and lease of close to 2500 Fujitsu Stylistic Q55 tablets. The project came with a hefty price tag, but some of the cost of the program was offset by savings from the purchase of textbooks. Middle school students are only able to use their tablets at school while high school students are able to bring them home at the end of the day.

Students use the tablets for homework as well as in class and teachers are utilizing the Moodle Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to integrate class materials, quizzes and announcements into online and classroom work. The success of the program is attributed to the fact that much of the responsibility for learning is turned back to the students. They go over the Powerpoints and videos at home and then work out problems in class. The traditional “lecturer talking, students listening” format is disappearing with the use of tablets in a blended learning environment. The level of collaboration between students has increased, and students are able to answer questions amongst themselves through the VLE before asking for teacher input. As far as worries about the theft and damage of these valuable tools, only 2% required repair in their pilot year and none had been stolen or lost.

From elementary to graduate level work, blended learning is taking off. The cost of providing the technology to students is of course the biggest challenge, but as in Charlottesville, this could be offset with savings from textbook funds. So far, the reports from teachers have been positive and there is likely much more growth to be seen in this format.