IBIS Capital forecasts 15-fold growth in the eLearning market over the next decade and Sibling Group Holdings hasn’t wasted any time getting in on the opportunity. Earlier this year Sibling acquired Blended Schools Network (BSN), which provides benchmark online curriculum for K-12 schools, including professional development for teachers, complete course authoring tools, and learning management system (LMS) administration and support.
BSN offers 212 different online courses and last year served more than 160 school districts with more than 300,000 course enrollments last year. Among those school districts is the Shenandoah Valley School District located in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. The Republican Herald recently published an article entitled, “Shenandoah Valley Virtual Academy provides learning with and without walls,” discussing the various opportunities blended learning provides for learning outside the classroom and noting BSN’s anchored presence in the district.
“The academy has its roots in the district’s participation with the Blended Schools Network, which is a consortium of more than 200 Pennsylvania schools,” cites the article. “The network has coursework designed by accredited teachers and follows the guidelines of Pennsylvania academic standards.”
As the article further details, the Shenandoah Valley School District believes that learning should be free from brick-and-mortar confines for a set period of hours and that learning opportunities should be available at all times and in a variety of ways.
Blended and virtual learning models provide this opportunity without eliminating teacher-student interaction or diluting the quality and accountability of traditional classroom learning. In fact, the model for blended and virtual learning is not unlike online or distance learning college courses, which have been offered for more than 10 years.
Modern technology has enabled the creation of entire virtual schools and academies, enabling students to work from home and still have valuable contact with teachers via email or in-person. Some students never set foot in a classroom while students in blended schools come in for certain periods of the day.
“There are full-time virtual students who don’t come here,” district Secondary Principal Phillip Andras is quoted as saying in the article. “It’s just like a charter school. However, the benefit of taking virtual classes in a brick-and-mortar school setting is that whereas some virtual schools doing everything through e-mail or some kind of account like that, we have teachers here (and) they can meet face-to-face at any given time. We provide that flexibility.”
To read the article in its entirety, visit http://m.republicanherald.com/news/shenandoah-valley-virtual-academy-provides-learning-with-and-without-walls-1.1770576
As is the case with the Shenandoah Valley School Districts, many school districts are looking for dynamic solutions to provide high-quality learning opportunities to enhance student performance. Pioneering the evolution of today’s traditional education system, Sibling focuses on three key segments of the growing industry:
• Educational Technology (“Ed-tech”)
• Education Management
• Curriculum design and development
Sibling’s goal is to secure its position as a leader in education transformation creating high-quality lifelong learning options for the global marketplace. As part of this plan, the company recently entered into a partnership with LoudCloud, a behavioral analytics-based teaching and learning ecosystem, to enhance student access to its BSN content. The agreement extends BSN’s online, blended and competency-based learning to students via the LoudCloud learning management system.
For more information on SIBE, visit www.siblinggroup.com
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