Online Schools Clicking With Students

With your pajamas snug, your feet clad in bunny slippers, and a tub of ice cream on the desk, your computer glows in front of you. The clock reads 2 a.m.

In other words, time for class.

This isn't a dream, but a reality for hundreds of thousands of students. Although brick-and-mortar institutions still dominate the educational landscape, a new form of schooling -- called online or e-learning -- has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years.

The Peak Group, an education technology research and consulting firm, expects that more than 1 million students will take advantage of "virtual schools" this school year. Another research firm, Eduventures, predicted the online distance learning market will grow more than 38 percent in 2004, taking in $5.1 billion in revenue.

"In the last five years, the acceleration has been amazing," said Billie Wahlstrom, a vice provost on technology issues at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. "If you look at these things longitudinally, the curve is moving to the vertical."

The movement has taken hold particularly in higher education, where 90 percent of four-year public schools and more than half of four-year private schools offer some form of online education, according to the United States Distance Learning Association.

Graduate and college students aren't the only ones using online learning.

Nationwide, about 25 percent of K-12 public schools offer some form of e-learning for students and teachers, according to Education Week. And Eduventures says the market for such curriculum materials should grow 10 percent this year.

"The question that you have to ask is not who is offering distance learning, but who isn't," said USDLA Executive Director John G. Flores. Read more at cnn.com