No more snow days?

No more snow days - at least not for children in one rural Ohio school district.

In a pilot project this year, the Mississinawa Valley Schools instituted online learning on days when schools are closed due to weather. One reason: Avoid making up the missed days (if there are more than three) later in the year. But the board's superintendent says that experiencing online courses will also aid students in postsecondary learning, where such classes are more prevalent.

That's a legitimate argument, agree some Canadian e-learning experts. Apart from the value of the specific course, the very mode of e-learning can be beneficial.

"It prepares students for the world that awaits them," says Dominic Tremblay, who has consulted on e-learning courses for clients in Ontario.

In college, university and the workplace, online education is increasingly the norm. (Many teachers know that from their own learning.) If today's younger students are to learn successfully at those levels, then exposure to e-learning today can be critical.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with having students start using Web 2.0 to complement their learning," says Tremblay.

When should that begin? As a middle school teacher, Tremblay had online chat discussions in the classroom. "It wasn't 100 per cent e-learning, but it allowed students to discuss, argue and prepare a debate electronically." He says that students should start integrating e-learning materials at the elementary level, but that entire courses online should only be available in secondary school. Tony Bates, a Vancouver e-learning consultant, former teacher and author of a 2010 report called Strategic Directions for e-Learning in Canada (see www.contactnorth.ca, agrees that students should be introduced to e-learning gradually.

"It doesn't suit all students, at least not immediately, as not everyone has the self-discipline and learning style," says Bates.

To support the introduction of e-learning, students need the proper foundation, which includes independent learning skills, says Fernando†Gomes†Semedo, district e-learning contact at the Algoma†DSB. "For students who are unsuccessful, time management is the main reason," he says.

If all students are to become involved with e-learning in some way and at some point, consider too the importance of the setting. Kirsten Elvestad, Student Success Administrator at the DSB Ontario North East, says that some students carry out e-learning on their own time wherever they happen to be. "But we have the most success when students are doing it in school, during a set time and with teachers monitoring."

Students who typically live much of their lives online need to know that the computer isn't just something to play and chat on - it's a powerful learning tool.

Alison Slack, Co-ordinator of the Ontario eLearning Consortium, notes that several US states now require all students to take at least one online course in order to graduate.

Says Bates: "By the time they leave school, students should know how to handle online learning independently."