Well, if you had asked me, I could have told you. There is an opinion piece in the Washington Post that asserts that traditional schools are not working and recommends that we move learning online. Here’s the first part:

Deep within America’s collective consciousness, there is a little red schoolhouse. Inside, obedient children sit in rows, eagerly absorbing lessons as a kind, wise teacher writes on the blackboard. Shiny apples are offered as tokens of respect and gratitude.

The reality of American education is often quite different. Beige classrooms are filled with note-passers and texters, who casually ignore teachers struggling to make it to the end of the 50-minute period. Smart kids are bored, and slower kids are left behind. Anxiety about standardized tests is high, and scores are consistently low. National surveys find that parents despair over the quality of education in the United States — and they’re right to, as test results confirm again and again.

That does about say it all. Ultimately, what we are doing in classrooms is not working. I’m not willing to give up on it, though. However, I think that online learning will be key in fixing what is going on in those classrooms. When people want to talk about the effect of the traditional classroom on online learning, they have it exactly backwards.

Online learning is what will fix the classroom. Interactivity is what makes or breaks instruction. As we begin to do more creative instruction online, that will spill over into the brick-and-mortar classrooms.