For public schools, recent events are shining a floodlight on the need for online learning. But picking the right online learning system may be more complicated than you realize.
To be effective, online learning systems need to be built to support public schools, and they need to pave the way for ongoing learning progress.
Want to see how advanced online learning platforms are complementing public schools on a deeper level? In this article, we dive into the ways SmartFox K12 is supporting public school learning and how schools can use online learning to drive better outcomes.
More than ever, public schools are turning to online learning systems to deliver education. Even before COVID-19 muddled in-person learning, public online learning was becoming more and more the norm.
In 2018, one in five public schools already offered some fully online coursework. Now, some estimates predict the e-learning space will grow by $74 billion in the next four years.
What’s more, those trends come with recent bursts in both support and resources for online public learning. The U.S. Department of Education recently churned out $180 million to help schools set up for remote learning. Additionally, a 2020 Education Next survey found that 73 percent of parents are now willing to see their child complete courses online.
The result?
Public schools are quickly moving online to teach students. But as pressing as the need to transition online may be, picking a basic online system can be a big mistake—one that plagues schools for years, damages institutions’ reputations, and affects countless learners’ lives.
Schools may feel pressure to move quickly into public online learning, but there are reasons to proceed with caution. Before launching your new program, it’s worth pausing and considering the challenges that are baked into traditional online learning platforms.
In online learning, your learning management system (LMS) will be your school’s bread and butter. It’s the system that lets you deliver educational content to students and monitor progress. That means it directly affects learning outcomes, your school’s reputation, and the amount of frustrations school leaders experience daily. Unfortunately, the traditional LMS is known for a few challenges:
If your LMS is the school’s bread and butter, your SIS is its flour and water. That’s to say, it provides the building blocks for ongoing progress, houses crucial figures, and collects the enrollment data you need to keep the school running. Unfortunately, school leaders often run into several problems when they’re using a traditional SIS.
Public schools need an online curriculum that meets the standards of regulators and sparks positive learning growth. If it’s watered down or lacks substance, learning suffers and a school’s reputation could dwindle. Equally as important, the online coursework a public school uses can influence the decision of both students and parents to attend school.
Before picking out online curriculum, it is critical that school leaders make sure it’s trustworthy. That means it should make it easy to retain accreditation status, and it should be approved by major regulatory bodies.
At SmartFox K12, our education experts have experienced the challenges of traditional online learning systems firsthand. That’s why we built a K-12 online learning platform to support public schools. Here are some ways SmartFox K12 is improving public online learning:
Our curriculum is built by education and accreditation specialists. As a result, it’s been approved by some of the most stringent regulatory bodies out there, including the University of California system. We’ve also helped public schools design NCAA-approved coursework and use curriculum to secure accreditation.
If public schools want to avoid the headaches of traditional online learning systems, they need a system that simplifies information access. That’s why we designed SmartFox K12 with an integrated LMS+SIS structure. Essentially, information from our platform’s LMS and SIS flows into a single hub. That makes for several big advantages for leaders:
Public online learning requires a special level of support, and SmartFox K12’s platform is set up to provide it. Here’s how:
For public schools, seamless marketing and enrollment are essential. SmartFox K12 was built with these key needs in mind. In addition to including easy enrollment features, SmartFox K12’s platform integrates with your school’s marketing and enrollment software. That way, education leaders can spend less time reaching out to students and more time improving their lives.
Before your school jumps into online learning, it’s worth exploring how the best online learning platforms are set up to improve your school. Have questions about how SmartFox K12 can support your public online learning goals? Talk with one of our online learning experts today!