The California eLearning Census is being conducted by the California Learning Resource Network (CLRN), a state-funded technology service, in collaboration with the Evergreen Education Group. The deadline for completing the census is May 1st.

We’ve all seen online learning’s dramatic growth during the past few years as an increasing number of districts embrace it to meet their students’ needs. Collecting and reporting this growth in California is one way to demonstrate how quickly districts are adopting it as well as pointing out the assistance county offices can provide to our partner districts.

Census data will be published in the October, 2012 Keeping Pace, which will report both eLearning trends and student participation from each state. This survey will ask for the number of students who are learning online, both during the 2011-12 school year as well as during summer, 2011. Districts not currently implementing online learning, or that are in the planning stages, only need to complete questions 1-7. FAQs are at http://clrn.org/census.

CLRN has sent a request to all county offices, school districts and direct-funded charters for their participation and has included a copy of the census questions. In brief, the census asks districts to count the number of students who are taking all their courses online away from school as well as those who are learning online, part-time or full-time at a school campus. Census information and FAQs are located at: http://clrn.org/census.