The question my paper will attempt to address is "What is the state of the art in independent study/home schooling, and what educational technologies or techniques developed in this area can be applied to classroom settings."
I plan to survey the educational resources pioneered outside the classroom that may be of use to teachers in more traditional settings.
In the retail market, I am aware of K-12 home schooling projects and college study aids. I intend to include examples of print, audio, video, and software resources available for retail purchase.
There are also internet resources, widely used in independent study. The main difficulties in using these involve ensuring the quality of the material, understanding the difference between a reference and a tutorial, and the need for a unifying syllabus to provide direction and systematic coverage of subject matter.
Corporate education and training may have developed useful tools. (More research is required.) Similarly, new educational technologies that have already been successfully applied to classroom environments deserve mention for proper context. (This includes telecourses and online courses, and comparisons to older "correspondence course" instruction, and whether this is a real improvement.)
The difficulties of independent study deserve mention: who does the student ask questions of? (Many of these are easy to address in a classroom setting, but should still be part of any comparison. Online discussion via web pages or mailing lists may still be a valuable tool for teachers.)
Finally, the difference between education and certification is highlighted by many of these nontraditional educational channels. Trade certifications (MCSA, Cisco Certified Engineers, etc.) commonly have with no significant educational component, while pure education with little or no certification component is seen in corporate training and UT's non-credit courses. Is this split encouraged or discouraged by these new educational technologies?
The influence of new technology on education is profound and constant; if nothing else, the material being taught is constantly updated. It's possible that the methods by which it may be taught can also be improved beyond the 150 year old model of a teacher standing at a blackboard lecturing at rows of desks. (If nothing else, the teacher probably has access to a slide projector now.)
Some technologies have already been successfully applied to classroom learning. More are likely to show up in classrooms, or instead of classrooms, in the future. Other technologies will not successfully make the transition out of their current niches, and may not even survive in those niches.
All of these technologies are simply tools at the disposal of teachers and students; what's important is how they are used. But making the best use of available tools is generally a good idea. The future will arrive whether we prepare for it or not. We can't predict it, but we can try to be aware of the major options.
The audience for this paper is any teacher who is interested in the available instructional aids they may be able to bring into their classrooms.
Young, flexible teachers who are not yet set in their ways are prime candidates to try out new technologies to see which ones they find useful. Access to a larger toolbox also gives teachers more options when dealing with students whose needs and abilities vary.
Students interested in teaching themselves may also find the topic to be of interest, but they are not the primary focus of the presentation.