April 2001 — Editorial

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E-Learning

By Dr. Sylvia Charp, Editor-in-Chief

It makes 50 asynchronous classes available to students around the world. A new company called K12, chaired by former U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett, plans to market courses in language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, music and art. Prices are to range from $250 to $5,000, depending on what combination of individual courses, personal tutoring and equipment is needed. The goal is to enroll 100,000 students by 2005, and to provide the curriculum for virtual charter schools in Pennsylvania, California and Alaska.

A great deal of concern exists among educators. Governor Dean of Vermont expressed this very well at a Governors' meeting. "One of the things that is going to happen is an unbelievable revolution in higher education. What's going to happen is that distance learning will take off, and the only people who are not going to be affected are the top 100 or 200 universities; those which have a big endowment or a big reputation. They are probably going to do business as usual. But for most places, I think in the next five years, instead of going to a four-year college and paying $15,000 or $20,000 or $30,000 per year, students are going to work and take courses on the Internet. Our fourth largest industry is in higher education. We have 26 institutions of higher education. We bring in enormous amounts of money from students who come to Vermont. What I've got to figure out and what our college people have to figure out is how are we going to continue that income stream?"

It is recognized that e-learning is becoming a significant force in education and training. The number of students involved grows and the demand will probably exceed the availability of course material. Colleges and universities will continue to collaborate among themselves and with government institutions to provide non-traditional educational experiences. However, e-learning will not totally replace traditional classroom instruction. It is important that content and course development be the responsibility of instructors, and that they remain actively engaged in selecting and creating an e-learning program.

E-learning requires significant investments of time and money, both to develop courses and for revision of courses. Potential for large-scale usage has been over-sold, and return on investment is over-stressed. Whether it shall result in better learning and higher efficiency still needs to be proven.