Online learning provides students unique learning experiences tailored to their individual needs and learning styles. It allows for meaningful collaboration between students and engagement with real-world problems. Forty-four states now offer some level of online or supplemental online learning programs for K-12 students to use for enrichment, remediation, or distance education. Online learning environments encourage the development of 21st century skills like problem solving, communication, and information literacy that are essential for students' future success.

1. Online Learning K-12 By Kerry Whitman Walden University

2. Students are more motivated when they are challenged and the task involves something they are interested in.

3. Meaningful and Authentic Learning Students can take part in activities like virtual field trips or discussions with professors about their content area information. Collaboration with other students and discussions with peers are among the most important pieces of online learning. Students learn real-world skills.

4. 44 States have either significant supplemental or full time online learning programs (Young, Birtolo, & McElman, 2009).

6. Ways to use online learning Students can use online learning for enrichment, interventions, homebound instruction, or distance learning. Teachers can create learning modules for any content area and design it for particular students or the whole class.

7. Reasons for OnlineLearning Online learning can give students opportunities to demonstrate mastery of academic concepts while using today’s tools and resources (Young, Birtolo, & McElman, 2009).

8. Online learning=Unique Experience Online learning is more likely to be designed for the individual, taking into account learning styles, preferences, and geared to their level.

9. Refuting Arguments Students will not have experience working with other students and group activities cannot be assigned. Rebuttal: Virtual learning environments give student opportunities to work together in small groups to develop problem solving, communication, and creative collaboration skills (Young, Birtolo, & McElman, 2009). Students can use blogs, wikis, Skype, and podcasts to collaborate.

10. Refuting Arguments Students will not put forth an effort and do work online. Rebuttal: Students want to learn science and math through real-world problemsolving, by visiting places where science is in action, by talking to professionals in their field, and by using technology as the vehicle (Young, Birtolo, & McElman, 2009).

11. We have reinvented the educational delivery system with the end user –students- in mind, using tools, content, and teaching strategies that help students develop critical thinking skills, build global awareness, and gain 21st century skills (Young, Birtolo, & McElman, 2009).

12. In online classroom setting, there is a cultural shift from the importance of possessing knowledge in one’s own memory, often received through teacher lecture, to the ability to effectively search for and use information needed for particular purposes (Hargis & Schofield, 2007).

13. As Lemke and Coughlin (2009) stated, educators need to assess students’ prior knowledge and design instruction that provides more individualized learning paths and builds students’ self-directed learning skills. Online learning does this and more for our students.

14. References: Hargis, J., & Schofield, K. (2007). Integrating Online Learning into Elementary Classrooms. In P. Adamson, B. Adamson, & N. Clausen-Grace, et al (Eds.), What Works in K-12 Online Learning (pp. 33-47). Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education. Lemke, C., & Coughlin, E. (2009). The change agents. Educational Leadership, 67(1), 54–59. Young, J., Birtolo, P., & McElman, R. (2009). Virtual success: Transforming education through online learning. Learning & Leading with Technology,36(5), 12–17.