E-Learning and Gifted Students

Image via WikipediaA recent article, E-Learning Opens Doors for Gifted Students, in Education Week looks at e-learning programs for the gifted in the US, with a focus on the increase and growing demand for these programs.

As funding cuts loom and the present climate of fiscal constraint around government services threaten to drain monies from programs for the gifted (in both Canada and the US), more schools, and parents / students may be looking to online education as a way to fill the gap in offerings.

Here's a list of some of the e-learning programs for the gifted offered in the US:

• The Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University operates an independent supplementary online program for gifted K-12 students called Gifted LearningLinks


• The Virtual Learning Academy Charter School in Exeter, N.H., launched in January 2008 and is the state's first statewide online public high school. Since 2008 it has grown to 11,500 course enrollments. Many of the students served by the school are high-achieving learners.


• The Virtual High School Global Consortium, a nonprofit organization based in Maynard, Mass., that provides online high school courses to more than 15,000 students around the globe. The organization's enrollment has more than doubled since the 2005-06 school year.
  


• The Education Program for Gifted Youth at Stanford University has grown from 30 to 360 students in the past six years, employs a synchronous learning model, so all the students have the opportunity to communicate with their peers, as well as their teacher, in real time.
  
• The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Online program. This tuition-free program builds off NCSSM's residential program for gifted North Carolina juniors and seniors with a high aptitude in science and math.