Homeschoolers--and their motivations--are increasingly diverse. A number of innovations, such as online schools, microschools, co-ops, and support centers, are enabling this diversity. Though frequently left out of the conversation about education, the homeschooling movement has much to teach us about creating more customized and effective school…

The Internet has disrupted or threatened to disrupt the traditional business models in many different areas, including publishing, record companies, retail sales, motion pictures, and advertising. One potential source of disruption for higher education is online learning, especially the recent focus on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Can…

Since MIT and Harvard started edX, their joint experiment with free online courses, the venture has attracted enormous attention for opening the ivory tower to the world. But in the process, the world will become part of an expensive and ambitious experiment testing some of the most interesting--and difficult--questions in digital education. Can…

The people an educational institution is trying to reach--prospective and current students, alumni and parents, to name a few--are no longer passive recipients of press releases and newsletters. They are on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and any other social media platform that comes to mind. What can sometimes get lost amid the constant…

The Fordham Institute's "Teachers in the Age of Digital Instruction" is an advocacy document outlining a vision for how technology might transform the teaching profession. The report's rationale is based on claims that the current education system lacks the capacity to support the revolutionary changes needed to unleash the technological…

Will the digital-learning movement repeat the mistakes of the charter-school movement? How much more successful might today's charter universe look if yesterday's proponents had focused on the policies and practices needed to ensure its quality, freedom, and resources over the long term? What mistakes might have been avoided? Damaging scandals…