An emerging research base has highlighted various roles and responsibilities that parents of students with disabilities accept when they enroll their children in online schools. Since finding and using online texts and using various programs and applications that require search and evaluation skills to do work are typical for online learning, it…

The future of virtual environments is evident in many fields but is just emerging in the field of teacher education. In this article, the authors provide a summary of the evolution of simulation in the field of teacher education and three factors that need to be considered as these environments further develop. The authors provide a specific…

As enrollments in cyber charter schools grow, it becomes increasingly important to understand how parents engage in their students' learning. Researchers have hypothesized that parental engagement is even more critical when online students learn from home, but few researchers have examined parents' engagement behavior--especially parents of…

Little research has examined the critical components of successful K-12 online schools, due in part to the theoretical focus of current frameworks on higher education rather than characteristics of K-12 online learners and environments. Using K-12 online research, this paper examined "teaching presence" as explained by the Community of…

This study used survey data to measure the effect of learners' reported interactions with content, peers, and instructors on several course outcomes in two virtual high school courses that emphasized interactive learning. Surveys found that the large majority of students viewed all investigated types of interaction as educational and motivational.…

A belief commonly held in the K-12 education community is that parents can have a positive impact on their child's learning. However, little research has examined parental involvement in an online learning environment. In this study, researchers using survey data found that generally students and parents viewed parent-instructor and learner-parent…

Virtual schooling is a recent phenomenon in K-12 online learning. As such, the roles of the online teachers are emerging and differ from those of the traditional classroom teacher. Using qualitative interviews of eight virtual high school teachers, this study explored teachers' perceptions of their online teaching role. Teachers expressed a sense…

In many ways, specialized computer labs are the black holes of IT organizations. Budgets, equipment, employees--even space itself--are sucked in. Given a choice, many IT shops would engage warp drive and escape their gravitational pull forever. While Captain Kirk might have looked to Scotty for a fix to the problem, colleges and universities are…

This study examined the relationship between students' perceptions of teacher-student interaction and academic performance at an asynchronous, self-paced, statewide virtual high school. Academic performance was measured by grade awarded and course completion. There were 2269 students who responded to an 18-item survey designed to measure student…

This study explored the nature of teacher-student interaction from the perspective of eight virtual school teachers in an asynchronous, self-paced, statewide, supplemental virtual high school. Teacher interviews revealed the majority of interactions were student-initiated and instructional in nature. The main procedural interactions focused on…