A recent article in U.S. News & World Report begins with an update on Bill Gates' commitment to online learning as "the next place where the Internet will surprise people in how it can improve things." Gates says that so far, technology has hardly changed formal education and that online learning should be more than just lectures, offering, instead, lessons that make use of multimedia and are tailored to individual students' learning needs.

According to the article, Gates is far from alone in his enthusiasm for online learning. Last summer, we are reminded, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch made headlines when he announced that he would be launching an M.B.A. program with classes being offered almost entirely online. "Online education is going nowhere but up. It's for real," Welch told BusinessWeek magazine. Using data collected from degree-granting online learning programs nationwide, U.S. News has found that the number of such programs increased by 75 percent between 2001 and 2008.

The article quotes Intel's Eileen Lento as follows:

"I think this is the right direction, but I would take it even further," says Eileen Lento, an education and government strategist for Intel, who holds a Ph.D. in human computer interfacing. She cites a piano lesson in real time between an American student and a teacher located in Germany, with the piano linked to the instructor's computer, as an example of how certain software programs can mediate learning experiences that otherwise could not take place. And at Virginia Tech, some professors use interactive digital whiteboards to teach lessons that can go to students who aren't even in the classroom, says Lento.

Michael Horn, the executive director of education for the nonprofit think tank Innosight Institute, was cited as well: "What I think we want to use online learning to do is to escape the traditional factory model that treats every student the same way on the same day."

Source: Online Learning Gets High Praise From Bill Gates, by Zach Miners, U.S. News & World Report, January 28, 2010.