With the emergence of digital learning communities there is now no limit to your education!

The five digital learning communities  (DLC’s) I choose to explore were Khan Academy, University of the People, Open Yale Course, Havard Open Courses for Free, and Utah State OpenCourseWare.

The traits that made these five DLC’s more noticeable and impressive than the others was the fact that two of these learning communities were headed up by ivy-league universities, Yale and Havard.  As I explored their sites Havard linked me to https://www.edx.org/ where students can take courses online from the BEST universities.  WOW!  As a homeschooling mother this is awesome!  When my child is in high school and if she is ready, she can start taking some university courses.  Utah State is another university allowing some of their courses to be available free of charge.

The University of the People was impressive to me as well because it functions as a university granting degrees and everything!  Although they are limited in what they offer, it is a good launching pad for those needing prerequisite skills before pursing another degree at a different college or university.

Finally, there is Khan Academy, the DLC that I joined.  The reason why this DLC is most intriguing is the fact that it has videos and activities that my students can take advantage of even now.  It allows me to suggest videos to them or lessons to them as their coach and it allows me to see what they do and how much time they have spent on a particular subject.  I love Khan Academy as a support class.

The DLC’s I observed looked excellent, more advertising and informing school counselors about these options would definitely get the word out more and allowing a few credits from the DLC to count or allowing students to take a placement test to exempt them from courses that they took at a DLC up to a certain amount of credits would definitely make them more appealing.

Just another math educator giving my two-cents about digital learning communities