Online Schools and the Hype Cycle
For those who pine for film over digital movies, miss the clackety-clack of typewriters, or even rotary dial phones, well, get ready for the slow-motion demise of brick-and-mortar schools. Watching the surge of media attention for online schooling from both official and entrepreneurial sources, it sure looks like blended schools soon and, in the not too distant future, kiss goodby to those familiar red-brick, steepled, and factory-look-alike buildings called schools ( see: EEG_KeepingPace2011-lr). Cautious reports of educators not yet swooning for online schooling are lost in the swirl of hype.
Just recently, for example, a story on Stanford University graduating 30 seniors from the Stanford Online High School. Not a typo. High School, not the University. Exceedingly parsimonious about ever using its name, the Board of Trustees authorized a program for gifted youth launched five years ago to provide an online curriculum leading to a diploma at an annual cost to students of nearly $15,000. Other institutions such as the University of Nebraska (Lincoln), University of Missouri, George Washington University (D.C.), and Middlebury College have
