Resource Sharing

A few weeks back, I saw an entry at The GoldenSwamp that was titled "HP Free Online Courses." At first it didn't catch my attention, until I read a little further and saw:

"It should be considered why free courses like the ones here cannot be used in schools instead of spending education dollars to create courses that teach the same material.

Now, if you recall... Many moons ago I was asking a similar question:

How much money must be spent on borrowing courses with no real ownership, before it becomes too much? (see "Selling Online Course Content?")

I know it isn't quite the same, as one is dealing with a for profit corporation and mine is looking at educational co-operation, but you see the connection.

There are some twenty-odd states that have virtual schools at this monent. In the US there are countless school districts that maintain their own virtual schools. There are four provinces with provincial virtual schools and another two provinces where numerous school districts maintain their own virtual schools. There is the Virtual High School with is consortiu model (which is based upon sharing resources among its member schools).

When are we all going to come together and figure out a way to pool resources, particularly those involving course content, sharing students, course management, and student management, between virtual schools so that our students have access to a wider variety and better pedagogical learning opportunities? Or maybe a better question is what is stopping this from happening now?

Tags: virtual school, cyber school, high school, education