US Secretary of education Arne Duncan described the nation's "new normal," in which schools would be required to do more with less.

In his book Disrupting Class, Clayton Christensen predicts that "by 2019, 50percent of all high school courses will be delivered online."

There is a matrix of learning models to help school leaders understand blended learning.

Students learn through a mix of online/offline and supervised brick and mortar/remote

Other less pure examples include: purely virtual schools (cyber school and e-school). Students should be self blending with a traditional school campus.

Blended Learning models include:

Face to face driver
face to face teachers deliver most of the curriculum. A physical teacher employs online learning in a technology lab or the back of the classroom to supplement

Rotation
Within a given course, students rotate on a fixed schedule between self paced online learning and sitting in a classroom with a face to face teacher.

Flex
An online platform delivers most of the curriculum. Teachers provide on-site, as-needed support through in person tutoring or small group sessions.

Online lab
An online platform delivers the entire course, but in a brick and mortar location. Often, students who participate in an online lab program also take traditional courses.

Self-blend
Students choose to take remote online courses to supplement their school's traditional curriculum. This model of blended learning is extremely popular among high school students.

Online Driver
An online platform and teacher deliver all the curriculum. Students work remotely, and face to face check ins are either available or mandatory.

TED-Ed YouTube channel - made by teachers and animators who illustrate a concept as a top teacher explains the concept in a short video.

TED will open a submission portal at http://education.ted.com/ where animators and educators around the world can contribute lesson plans and video reel on any topic.

A computer program is no substitute for the motivation teachers provide.

More and more, teachers are becoming "directors of learning" who guide students. They do not need to be the only one's imparting knowledge.

The concept of flipping classrooms is key to the mentoring role teachers need to fulfill.

Performance learning Center Project - An alternative to traditional schools.

Reaching out to students that are the most troublesome; students with poor attendance, excessive tardiness, academic failure, apathy, social issues, low motivation and challenges to success.

States are raising their graduation standards, but returning kids to the classroom for a second attempt at algebra is often counterproductive.

NovaNET
e2020
Aventa
BYU independent study
Many more!

Multi touch textbooks - students can flip through texts with the slide of a finger. One tap to a glossary or dictionary, 3D images and interactive chapter reviews.

More than 20,000 educational Apps including; Interactive lessons, study aids, productivity tools from science to sign language.

Students can track assignments, take notes and study. Teachers can give lessons, monitor progress and stay organized.

Advanced screen readers, screen magnifiers, inverted colors, Braille displays, dictation, FaceTime and closed captions.

Web based learning activities are introduced to complement face to face work

Seat time is reduced, though not eliminated

Web based and face to face components designed to interact pedagogically to take advantage of the best features.


Source: UWM website

2000 - 45,000 K-12 students took an online course

2003 - roughly 10% of students in higher education took an online course

2009 - 3+ million K-12 students took an online course; roughly 30% of students in higher education took at least one online course.

2019 - 50% of high school courses will be delivered online; 50% of all post secondary students will take at least one class online (projected).