An interesting Education Week article published earlier this week comments on the rising popularity of online classes being offered in high schools, particularly in the realm of AP (advanced placement) courses.

Turns out that two key things are happening here., and they're meeting in the middle. One is that schools are increasingly accepting the idea that education can indeed happen in a virtual medium with ever-present advances in technology (imagine if a teacher yelled at a student for having their iPod headphones on in the hallway, only to find that the student was listening to an AP US History lecture they had just downloaded from their virtual class). The second development is the recognition from all different kinds of schools and students that AP classes are a key to college access and improved school rankings, at least according to this Washington Post school ranking system that has seen its own fair share of controversy.

The result is that small schools and rural schools seeking to increase the number of AP courses available to their students are turning to companies that offer virtual AP classes, and so too are big schools with unwieldy scheduling systems that prevent many students from taking the classes they prefer.

What do make of this trend? For starters, I'd love to hear from any students out there who have had a virtual class experience in school. Are the teachers accessible? How well are your questions addressed? Do you have a similar amount of homework and time spent "in class" as in your traditional classes? Seems to me that the answer doesn't need to be yes to this last question in order for the online classes to be worthwhile, especially since the AP test results so far seem to indicate that online AP students don't do any worse than traditional students (though there may be a selection bias there). As far as the bigger picture and whether schools will convert to be much, much more online-oriented in the future, perhaps it will happen--far be it for me to be a technology nay-sayer. But it will take a long time and a lot of public pressure before it will happen; schools remain very, very stalwart institutions that are resistant to quick, widespread change. Whether or not that's for the best is a subject of a whole different debate!