"Because of their inherent flexibility, digital technologies can adjust to learner differences, enabling teachers to (1) differentiate problems a student may have using particular kinds of learning media from more general learning problems and (2) draw upon a student's other strengths and interests that may be blocked by the exclusive use of printed text."  It is for this reason that I find online curriculum so fascinating. I have taught in a traditional brick and mortar school with text as the main basis for curriculum, and I am currently facilitating an online curriculum that is mainly web based.  The largest difference that I am seeing is that the online curriculum encompasses so many different types of media as a means of learning.  That is not to say the students do not have text that they are required to access, but the program also offers animated videos, audio books and curriculum specific games to enhance the learning material. One notable observation that I have made, is that the students who are new to this style of learning are struggling with the independence part of this type of curriculum.  They tend to see links and try to get by with only accessing that part of the curriculum.  They are so used to being spooned fed every aspect of the lesson, even the directions, that they are not reading all of the directions and end up missing part of the instruction. My focus this first two weeks has been to train them on using all of the tools that are offered with this type of curriculum, the text portions as well as the media portions in an effort to reach all learning modalities.

Rose, D., & Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology Web site. Chapter 1. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/