Because of the high bandwidth requirement, learning pods will appear in metropolitan areas where the local telephone or cable company has aggressively improved its physical plant with hybrid fiber-optic cable. Small towns just won't have the bandwidth to compete with their urban counterparts. Today a number of virtual universities are beginning to emerge on the Internet. For example, the Western Governors' Association is creating such an entity. As virtual K-12 schools develop, I believe that they will function quite differently from the virtual universities.
Virtual universities exist to deliver college credit in the form of content-filled coursework.
Virtual K-12 schools will pursue goals that are much less focused on existing courses. I'd like to devote a future column to initial efforts to create virtual schools. Kappan web pages designed by Carol Bucheri. Multiple copies may not be made without permission. All rights reserved.