eLearning: Dalat's New Online Learning Requirement

eLearning: Education for a wired generation

Dalat International School adds online learning requirement

For today's youngsters, technology equals communication. Hand phones, email, chat rooms, Facebook, podcasts — these are part of everyday life. And when adults struggle to adapt to the newest technological gadget, kids jump in easily, like fish to water.

Consider this: Today's 21 year olds have

• watched 20,000 hours of TV,

• played 10,000 hours of video games,

• talked 10,000 hours on the phone,

• and sent 250,000 emails or instant messages.

(according to education expert Marc Prensky)

So how can a school capitalize on its students' natural affinity for technology? At Dalat International School, eLearning is one of the answers.

Although the school has offered online learning options for awhile, in this year Dalat will take its eLearning program one step further — by requiring graduating seniors to take at least one online course. The first class to fulfill this requirement will graduate in 2012.

It's all part of preparing students with an education for life, a core value at Dalat, which is located on the island of Penang in Malaysia. “We want to be a school that prepares students for their future,” says Fred Colburn, Dalat high school principal. “As part of their life in the future they will be involved in e-learning. Looking at trends in education and the workplace, there is no doubt that our students will need these skills. We want to meet their needs.”

According to a 2007 report by the Sloan Consortium, online enrollment in universities across the United States is growing at a rate that vastly exceeds general student-growth rates. Nearly 20 percent of all college students in the country were taking an online course during fall 2006, the study found.

Long before online options took off in U.S. higher education, Dalat began offering Internet-based courses to its own students. In 2000 Dalat became the first school in Asia to partner with Virtual High School (VHS), an online education provider. Since then, the school has joined with two additional providers, Sevenstar Academy and Aventa Learning.

Dalat also offers its own eLearning courses. Yost himself has developed several eLearning courses such as Personal Psychology, which is offered entirely online. In addition, he and many other teachers offer “hybrid” eLearning courses, which blend online coursework and face-to-face time with the teacher.

Dalat students aren't charged additional fees to take an online course unless it's a summer course or a course beyond their normal load. The school pays its online education providers a reduced fee for courses by contributing teachers and courses to the provider. For example, Dalat teacher Corrine Rogers teaches an Environmental Science course for VHS that was developed by a previous Dalat teacher, so Dalat pays a reduced cost for the courses.

This past year more than 40 percent of the Dalat high school student body was involved in some kind of online learning. Online Advanced Placement courses were especially popular. “It's an enrichment opportunity for students to take courses we just can't afford to offer,” says Doug Yost, who directs eLearning at Dalat and supervises the eLearning lab on campus. “It also affords us tremendous flexibility in scheduling.”

That has allowed the school to offer classes to a large number of students who wouldn't be able to fit into a single classroom at the same time. This semester, Yost is teaching an online psychology course to 33 students. “In some ways, it's more demanding for the teacher,” Yost says. “Students are more engaged than if they were sitting in a lecture. Discussion is a vital part of every class…Teachers must respond to each student daily.”

Student-teacher communication can take a variety of forms: podcasts, Flash activities, discussion boards, and instant messaging, to name a few. Learning is interactive, with an emphasis on the teacher being a guide in the learning process. “We used to think that students had to be in a [classroom] seat for X number of hours for learning to occur,” Yost says. “Online classes were thought of as less rigorous, less demanding. But reality is that it's not just a kid sitting in an isolated area taking a class…100 percent of my online students are engaged when taking my class because they have to be.”

Online learning is especially beneficial to students at an international school because of its portability, Yost says. Expatriate families on the move can take eLearning with them. And an emergency school closure wouldn't be as disruptive to students at the high school level — they could finish a semester via online instruction.

Dalat's next eLearning goal is to offer dual-credit online classes that allow students to earn both high school and college credit at the same time. Yost hopes to offer through Dalat's partner Sevenstar course options for students by the 2009–10 school year.

Dalat International School provides education for life to children in preschool to grade 12. The school uses an American, college-preparatory, Christian curriculum to educate more than 420 students, representing 24 nationalities. Dalat is a fully accredited school, considered a leader in international education.

Sidebar:

Did you know?

• 80 percent of U.S. teenagers own three or more personal media devices, and 96 percent go online daily.

• 55 percent of U.S. teenagers have a profile on sites like mySpace and Facebook, and nearly half of that group sends messages to friends on those sites daily.

• Youngsters in the U.S. are comfortable with emerging technology: 64 percent have downloaded music from the Internet, 48 percent have streamed a radio station through the Internet, 32 percent have created a personal Web site or Web page, and 13 percent have a hand held device that connects to the Internet.