Tom Vander Ark Talks Online and Blended Learning With ChoiceMedia.TV

Getting Smart blogger Tom Vander Ark spoke with ChoiceMedia.TV at the recent 2011 Excellence in Action Summit, hosted by the Foundation for Excellence in Education in San Francisco this October.
In this short interview, Vander Ark discusses the challenges states face with policies that prohibit the development of effective online and blended learning models for students. “They’re simply barriers to education,” says Vander Ark. “They’re keeping students and parents away from great options.”
Vander Ark also talks about how budgets are difficult to manage in public school education when balancing employment contracts, student enrollment and cost curves and more to provide effective learning opportunities for students. Yet while a challenge, Vander Ark says that online learning can engage students and create new opportunities for learning.
“Almost to a person, when I talk to students learning online and I talk to teachers teaching online,” says Vander Ark, “they will always say my relationships are more personal and powerful teaching online than they ever were in the classroom.”
View the video below:

View the video on Choice Media.TV