The Course Management System (CMS) developer Blackboard released a report on online learning for k-12 students. I found it through an article posted on The Journal titled Study: Students Want To Learn Online.

My immediate reaction was deep skepticism—of course a study sponsored by one of the leaders in Course Management Systems finds that students want to learn online. But I decided to get the report to see if it has any lessons to apply to online language learning.

I have to say, despite being sponsored by a corporation that benefits from putting a positive spin, the report is largely free of generalisations and hyperbole. Unlike the article touting the study, nowhere does the report make the generalisation that students want to learn online. One of the survey’s highlights is fairly negative: “When asked if they had ever taken an online course, 29-30% of students had not and were not interested.”

So after reading through the article and thinking about it a bit, I think there is definitely some worthwhile information in the report for people running language learning sites for children.

My highlight is the survey of students.

The student survey asks the question: “Which of these are reasons you might take an online class?” and lists eight options. The top three reasons for students in grades 9-12, listed below in order of popularity, scored 40% and over.

1. To take a class that’s not offered at my school.
2. I like to work at my own pace.
3. To get extra help in a subject I’m having trouble with.

Now think how these reasons apply to language learning sites. The second reason can be safely ignored because it is pretty much a given that a student will be able to work at her own pace on any website. When writing educational content for high-school aged students, the content should be written with one of two goals in mind: either teach something that the students can’t learn in class, or help them with class.

On a superficial level these two goals seem pretty pointless because they cover everything; it’s either for school, or it isn’t. But think a little more deeply about fulfilling the needs of a high-school student who wants to study language outside of school. Why does she want to study? What does she want to learn? Or think about a student who needs help with his homework. What are his needs? The answers to these questions affect how the site is designed and how the content is written.

The student survey also asks the same question of students in grades 6-8. What is most remarkable with this group is that they are primarily interested in getting extra help and generally selected fewer reasons. This suggests to me that younger students are less likely to use online study resources.

That’s pretty much what I got from the study. One thing I noticed is that, in spite of being called a k-12 study, it only deals with grades 6-12—I said the report was largely free of generalisations and hyperbole that I expected from an corporate sponsored study. I would be interested to hear what others involved in language learning sites get from the report.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 8:14 pm and is filed under eLearning, EFL, ESL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.