[vreihen16]

I should probably keep my yap shut, having been personally and professionally involved with inventing online learning in the late 1980's alongside the chair of a college division that teaches the K-12 teachers both undergrad and grad.

Our conclusions at the time were that K-12 kids were not mature/responsible enough to properly learn in an asynchronous online format, unless there was an adult physically in the room making sure they were engaged with the lesson. We also determined that synchronous (video) was no better for that age group. It also didn't work well with one teacher linked to two or more remote classrooms, and it was usually better to send a teacher in person to the remote facilities rather than have an aide babysitting each remote room. No union or grant money involved, just a bunch of college professors who legitimately tried to make it work.

Four years ago, I was enlisted to assist the tech person at a local private K-6 school near where I work set up a Google Apps for Education site for their school. Their plan was to use it as a conduit between the *parents* and teachers, to engage the parents in their child's education by sending their daily homework and some helpful parent-targeted study guides for the day's topics. It was a BRILLIANT move on her part, since she sneakily got teacher buy-in to use the platform and most of the private school's parents were already seeking ways to be more involved with their child's education.

Long story short, I received a heart-warming email back in April from that school's principal, that I will surely print/frame and hang on my office wall when we are required to go back to the salt mines. She thanked me for volunteering my time to help get them started with Google Apps. Their school (and every other K-12 in the region) had to transition from classroom instruction to 100% online over a weekend. Because the parents and teachers were already used to working with Google Apps (and all of the students' accounts were in place and being used by their parents), they were the only school in the area that didn't miss a single day of classes when they had to transition to online.....