Swine-Flu Preparations Spur E-Learning Plans

Last school year, many educators were caught unprepared when schools closed in response to cases of swine flu. This time around, both the federal government and school districts are putting specific online-learning measures in place to get ready for possible closures or waves of teacher and student absences because of a flu outbreak.

To prepare for the H1N1 flu virus, federal education leaders recently formed a partnership with high-tech education companies to help students access curricula online.

At the district level, school officials in Montgomery County, Md., made sure students could send e-mail attachments to their teachers and find their homework online. And in Irving, Texas, school technology leaders are considering using video lessons that would air on the district’s television channel and providing laptops for middle school students to take home.

Concerns about the flu are pushing schools to use technology more heavily in their day-to-day activities and prompting them to look at creative ways of employing online learning. Schools with some e-learning tools or programs already in place are expanding or speeding up their use.

Those that haven’t done much with e-learning are now thinking about how technology could continue students’ education in all types of scenarios, from swine flu to hurricanes to other events that put students at home for extended periods.

“We’re getting calls every day from school districts that have online programs and want to ramp them up, and districts that do not have capabilities for online learning but want to know how to bring those in,” said Susan D. Patrick, the president and chief executive officer of the Vienna, Va.-based International Association for K-12 Online Learning, or INACOL.

High-Tech Partnership

The U.S. Department of Education released recommendations Aug. 24 for steps districts can take to prepare for possible long-term closures prompted by the H1N1 virus. Some of the suggestions were decidedly low-tech—such as sending home hard-copy packets of information and homework with students—but most focused on high-tech tactics. Federal officials urged school leaders to look into digital resources, webinar support, phone conferencing, online courses, and virtual classrooms as possible ways of delivering education.

The Education Department also announced a partnership with companies and organizations such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Pearson, Scholastic, Curriki, INACOL, and others to pool resources designed to support “continuity of learning” in case of school closures.

“We want to make sure as a department that we’re both putting forward best practices and ideas for the education community, but also dealing with innovators in the private sector to partner with them and make sure that together we can all work on putting together resources that will be helpful,” said Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for the department. “Our partners will be working to provide discounted services like conference calling and collaborative Internet teaching technologies so that we can better and more affordably connect students and teachers.”