November 2004 — Exclusive
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Guidelines for Selecting Quality K-12 Online Courses
www.w3.org/WAI) provides a good starting point for Web development resources to ensure universal access. But sufficient bandwidth also must be available to support communication and engagement with course content.
Concluding Remarks
According to Allan Jordan, former chairman and current board member of NACOL, “Recent initiatives like No Child Left Behind and state accountability measures indicate the importance of virtual learning” (Lott 2003). Virtual learning provides an option for quality education whether it is used to expand course offerings for all students, to meet the needs of students who are at risk or high achieving, or for those whom traditional schooling has not worked. However, providing quality takes a committed effort for instructional design, financial commitment to the technological infrastructure, and a mental paradigm shift of educators for their role in delivering instruction. Hopefully, the guidelines presented in this article will prove helpful for key stakeholders involved with or considering K-12 online learning. However, any set of virtual learning standards or guidelines is just a starting point in determining quality. Ultimately, in my experience as an online student, online educator and courseware developer, authorship, implementation and consumer perspectives play a role in determining online course quality (Deubel 2003b).
Online Resources
· Center for Applied Research in Educational Technology
· CIPA at Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction www.dpi.state.wi.us/dpi/dlcl/pld/cipafaq.html
· No Child Left Behind Act (U.S. Department of Education site)
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· The University System of Georgia’s Student Online Readiness Tool
References
Anglen, R. 2003. “Online School Keeps Kids In Line.” The
