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Digital Learning Task Force spends day in Hamilton

Options Academy - the Arts student Alexis Strong looks at her computer screen as she works on a painting Monday at the Fitton Center.

Staff photo by Gary Stelzer Options Academy - the Arts student Alexis Strong looks at her computer screen as she works on a painting Monday at the Fitton Center.

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By Richard O Jones, Staff Writer 6:33 PM Monday, November 7, 2011

HAMILTON — The Ohio Digital Learning Task Force met at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts Monday for a tour of the Options Academy of the Arts and to take testimony from researchers and educators.

The task force was created by the Ohio legislature in July “to develop a strategy for the expansion of digital learning that enables students to customize their education, produces cost savings, and meets the needs of Ohio’s economy,” according to the law that established it.

After the tour, Options Academy Principal Erin Schilling spoke with the eight members of the 11-member task force in attendance about how the school, a program of Bulter Tech, has merged online learning for academic subjects with hands-on instruction in the arts.

The merger had to overcome difficulties in capacity and technical issues without any kind of model or plan in place to facilitate the transition, she said, but after the second year, it started working for the advantage of the students.

Technology, Schilling said, allows flexibility to customize both the learning day and each student’s academic calendar based on their needs and preferences.

“They find their area of passion that drives the student and allows them to spend their whole day on that,” she said.

She advised the task force that “these experiences can be built into any kind of model and any kind of subject area.”

Task force member Susan Stagner, a vice president of Ohio Connections Academy, commended Options Academy as “a school wrapped around its students using technology to focus on the outcomes of the kids.”

The task force also heard testimony regarding the availability of Internet connections in Ohio’s schools, findings of a 10-year study on the use of technology in the classroom, an overview of research on on-line and mobile learning and the Mobile Learning Project now in its fourth year at St. Marys City Schools.

The task force is required to deliver a report on its findings to Ohio’s top lawmakers, including Governor John Kasich, by March 1, 2012.

The public is invited to offer ideas and information by emailing digitallearning@ode.state.oh.us.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.

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