09 virtual schooling_in_europe_alt
DESCRIPTION
About the VISCED Poject: The VISCED project carried out an inventory of innovative ICT-enhanced learning initiatives and major ‘e-mature’ secondary and post-secondary education providers for the 14-21 age group in Europe. This entailed a systematic review at international and national levels including a study into operational examples of fully virtual schools and colleges. The outputs of this work have been analysed and compared to identify relevant parameters and success factors for classifying and comparing these initiatives. See http://www.virtualschoolsandcolleges.info/ ALT-C 11-13 September 2012 University of Manchester, UK This was the 19th international annual conference of the Association for Learning Technology in the UK which is a highly prestigious event attracting many academics and researchers. http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2012 To be written and added to web site Presentation given by Barry Phillips from Sero entitled “Virtual schooling in Europe: Removing the policy traps. VISCED:A Transnational Appraisal of Virtual School and College Provision” focussed on the first set of policy recommendations emerging from VISCED.TRANSCRIPT
Virtual schooling in Europe:
Removing the policy traps. VISCED:
A Transnational Appraisal of Virtual School and College Provision
website: http://www.virtualschoolsandcolleges.info/
wiki: http://virtualcampuses.eu/index.php/Main_Page
VISCED aims "to make an inventory and to carry out a systematic review of international and national levels of innovative ICT-enhanced learning/teaching 'Exemplar' initiatives and 'e-mature' major secondary and post-secondary education providers for the 14-21 age group (including Virtual Schools and Colleges)."
Developing a typology for VISCED: The five level description
Fully Virtual:may be purely virtual or physical ‘school’
with face2face
TEL Savvy School:
physical school with some
distance/off campus
provision
Supplemental Virtual:for e.g. languages, maths etc
(student has physical host school)
Virtual School Within a Physical
School: e.g. US may be for catch-up etc
Online Learning
Community:Notschool,
Mixopolis etc
68 ‘Virtual Schools’*
Across 18European countries*
From 25-1,400 students*
Mean is c470*
Virtual Schools in Europe: Profiles - headlines
• Student numbers/enrolments from 10s to 1,000+ and (potentially) 1,000s
• Public, Private, Public/Private, Not-for-Profit
• Mainstream – full or wide curriculum coverage
• Mainstream – niche subjects
• Inclusion – variety of target groups
• Revision/catch-up
• Expatriates/cultural/language needs
• Continuing education (beyond school leaving)
• Geographical isolation *usually combined with another factor – not typically the primary motivation
• Pedagogy: broad spectrum – 100% online > significant face-to-face
Policy Traps
• Do existing Legislative Frameworks disadvantage virtual schooling? (Is it legal? PE?)
• Are there tensions between sovereign states and EU (State v Federal)?
• Quality assurance? Common standards – courses? TT?
• Inspection regimes?
• Cross-border ‘safeguarding’?
• Accreditation? Validation?
• Who ‘owns’ the qualifications?
• Funding? Cross-border funding?
• OER? OE? OA?
• Public Opinion?
• Exacerbating inequality?
Policy Opportunities
• EC priority area – inclusion
children of a migrant background travelling - itinerant - transient tackling early school leavingschool-phobicexcluded/at risk of exclusion geographically isolated.sick/hospitalised credit recoveryrequiring support for transition to HEyoung offenders – in custody > on releasecommon language/cultural needs/connections young parents with childcare responsibilities
• EU wide niche demands
expatriates/children of service personnel overseas elite athletes curriculum gaps revision/acceleration
• Rich data potential
• Driving broadband uptake