We’ve been doing a lot of work here lately in online and blended learning, building courses and helping teachers think about how to use online learning as a tool to help differentiate instruction.
Blended learning is the way that many K-12 schools are getting into this area. Blended learning, of course, is when part of the instruction is face-to-face and part is online.
That spans a big continuum though, and I’ve found that while some teachers offer their students great flexibility in the online portion of their class, others are more traditional. In fact, some ideas of “blended” learning are not obviously different from regular technology integration. As an example, I would not consider whole class activities with a projector and a learning management system like Moodle to be “blended.” Yes, they may be very effective and great uses of technology, but they do not allow the students the benefits of learning anywhere, anytime, and in any way they like. That is the key to blended learning.
So to stretch the thinking of teachers who are new to blended learning, I researched how the experts define blended learning. Here is a compilation of the results.
The percentages of instruction that is done online is interesting, but more intriguing is the description of learning that is student-centered, active, and personalized. To me, that is what online and blended learning is all about.