Online learning's future must balance innovation, values

Online learning seems new, but it’s older than you think.

The field’s predecessor, distance education, can be traced back centuries. From Sir Isaac Pitman, who taught shorthand by correspondence in 1840, to lectures broadcast on the radio in the early 1920s, all the way through to the early 1990s when colleges and universities took advantage of the newly minted World Wide Web and began to offer online education programs, it has evolved alongside technological advances.

In those early days of the internet, online learning was an adjustment for students, too. When Bellevue University launched its online master of business administration program in 1996, we mailed out floppy disks to students with the software they would need to access their coursework. One student called us for help, and after a little troubleshooting, we figured out they hadn’t yet taken their new computer out of the box!

But online learning came into the spotlight in the biggest possible way in March 2020. That’s when the coronavirus pandemic shuttered schools nationwide. Here in Nebraska, then-Gov. Pete Ricketts directed that the 1,095 public schools serving nearly 320,000 K-12 students operate without students in the building. Most of those schools, plus the private schools in Nebraska that serve more than 43,000 students, pivoted to online learning. Now, except for the occasional remote learning day for inclement weather, virtually all primary and secondary schools are back in person most of the time.

The numbers show a different story at the college level. While demand for online education spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, research done through the Changing Landscape of Online Education project indicates the market has not yet peaked in the post-secondary space. Considering that only 24% of public and 8% of private four-year schools say they widely use online learning, there’s plenty of room for growth. The most recent CHLOE report noted that online program enrollment is growing faster than on-campus, with even campus-based students asking for more online options.

The technology elephant in the room is AI, which is hastening colleges’ shift to online learning. artificial intelligence, especially generative AI tools like Chat GPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft CoPilot, is already in use in living rooms, conference rooms and classrooms with students of all ages.

While the early narrative around AI in education was more doom and gloom and focused on scenarios of students using AI to cheat or avoid doing assignments, that doesn’t do the innovation and the potential it holds justice. Instead of seeing AI as a threat, I would encourage shifting our view to see AI as an educational tool – akin to using a calculator in an advanced math class.

At our institution, where 96% of students learn fully online, AI is a tool that is allowing us to support faculty, especially in new and exciting ways. We’re currently exploring using AI to complete time-consuming tasks like grading lengthy assignments or recording information into multiple systems in seconds and minutes. The time saved can then be devoted to the part of the educational process we value most: the teacher-student relationship.

Learners also benefit. Many public and private colleges in the state have already implemented AI-powered chatbots to help students handle routine administrative tasks. Lincoln, Omaha, and Millard Public Schools use AI-driven platforms to personalize instruction. The platforms instantly analyze where students are in the learning process and just as quickly adjust content to meet students where they are.

Enhanced through AI, online learning’s future is incredibly bright. Bellevue University sees online learning not plateauing but continuing to advance in ways that benefit learners in heavily populated areas and rural counties alike. We envision students being able to move seamlessly – without the friction of time, location and platforms – between different types of learning environments that help them achieve their next educational goal.

Instead of just imagining a future where student teachers learn to manage a disruptive classroom through immersive online learning technology or where avatar-based augmented reality interactions are as common as laptops, or simply dreaming about a day when an intelligent online tutor provides valuable feedback at scale to hundreds or thousands of students, we can leverage AI to elevate online learning to the next level.

The technology exists, but it will take visionary partnerships between educational institutions across the state, companies in every industry, and people from all backgrounds to create a future where online learning and artificial intelligence delivers what we, as Nebraskans, need and value.