Of all the recent budget cuts made by the Eagle County, Colorado, school district, none sparked as much anger or faced the same scrutiny as the decision to cut three foreign-language teaching positions and replace them with online instruction. At a spring school board meeting, supporters of the targeted programs in French and German, as well as…

Many teenagers are more skilled in using tools of technology for learning than the adults who guide their education. The Center for a Digital Future at the University of Southern California administers annual surveys to track the impact of online technology. Jeffrey Cole, center director, reports that adolescents consider the Internet to be their…