In the evolving landscape of K-12 education, the terminology we use to describe innovative learning models is more than mere semantics; it shapes perceptions, expectations, and outcomes. At the recent Digital Learning Annual Conference (DLAC), a recurring theme emerged: a palpable confusion surrounding the term "hybrid learning," particularly when contrasted with "blended learning." This distinction is not just academic—it's fundamental to understanding the future of educational practices. A visit to schools in the Chicago area further illuminated the diverse interpretations and implementations of these models, sparking a vital discussion. Is it time to reconsider our vocabulary? Perhaps "flexible" learning is a more apt descriptor for the education model combining offsite online learning with onsite, teacher-led instruction.

In November and December of 2022 when I started receiving some odd student submissions in my English 12 course I needed to figure out what was going on. At first I was annoyed, then intrigued, then annoyed again, maybe even a little angry. I made a lot of mistakes in those first two months with how I addressed students using ChatGPT. I dove in and did what I could to figure out what was happening, how the tools worked and how to address learners who were using them inappropriately. Within two more months I was facilitating table talks and sharing some of what I was learning at DLAC in 2023. That led to me writing some guides on how we might think about using them in education. Even after a year, I think they still hold up, but something is still bothering me.

“Nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM” is an old tech phrase describing the idea that IBM and other established companies were safe bets when choosing technology and services providers. But perhaps that saying was tested recently, as several outlets reported on “NYC schools [being] ‘frustrated and angry’ by IBM’s fumble on remote learning snow day.

Now that we’re a few weeks removed from DLAC, it seems like a good time to reflect on what we saw there. I’ll start with a key caveat, though—at a conference with hundreds of sessions and more than 1700 attendees, any person’s view is going to be incomplete. With that in mind, here are three key takeaways…

Two recent blog posts (here and here) looked at educational savings accounts and their links to digital learning, including in microschools. A comment from a reader, and a new article in Education Next, are worthy of a quick follow-up.

An earlier blog post discussed educational savings accounts in the context of other forms of educational choice. Those choice options intersect with digital learning in several ways. Many online schools and hybrid schools are charter schools. In fact, it’s nearly certain that in the United States, the growth of online learning would have been very different if charter school laws did not exist. Many of the earliest online and hybrid schools, in states as diverse as Pennsylvania, Colorado, and California, were charter schools.

Educational savings accounts went from being among the most overlooked education topics in early 2023, to one in which expectations have outpaced reality, at least currently. This blog post, and an upcoming second one, reviews what ESAs are, how they intersect with online and hybrid learning, their trajectory over the past year, and the outlook for 2024.

This last blog post of 2023 is covering four varied articles that I’ve found to be interesting recently, but never rose to the level of covering in a full post. 1. “Did You Like School? I Didn’t” — This post hit home for me because like the author (a university professor), I see the field of education as mostly made up of people who generally liked their own school experience. This makes sense, of course—why would you spend your life in a field that you disliked during formative years? But that effect is distorting for two reasons. First and obviously, it creates a situation, especially at the leadership and policy level, that favors the status quo because many of the people in a position to create change from within education have a lived experience of personally not having needed that change when they were students. Second—and this is much more speculative—I believe this helps bolster a “burn it down” mentality among some advocates for alternatives to traditional public schools that is also distorting, because these advocates have had a bad experience with mainstream public schools and don’t feel heard.