Blended Learning

What is blended Learning?

The beauty of blended learning and using open tools is the fact you can dip in and dip out of the different types of learning experience and learning strategies. So you still have discussions within the classroom. You still have written work to do. You still have posters to create, whatever it might be. Within that, though, you have the appropriate technology to enhance it, to support it, to capture the evidence, or present the material in different ways.tool both for teachers and learners. You could ask learners to record a screen cast of them completing an activity on their computer, and this could form the basis of an assessment to assess their competency with a particular tool example using a software tool to complete an activity). There are a large number of ‘screen capture’ tools available, including Cam studio.

Whilst many people are familiar with Microsoft PowerPoint, there are also a number of other tools available for educators and learners to create engaging and interactive presentations on the web. For example, Prezi is an easy to use and freely available web-based tool that allows users to create multimedia-based stories for presentation and collaboration. Google also includes a presentation tool in its suite of tools, called Google slides, which can be used for simple presentations produced by an individual or a group. These are both ideal tools to suggest to learners, when they are asked to produce a presentation as part of an assessment.

It's an open space where you can place pictures, YouTube videos, or text. Another tool is Audacity. And with Audacity, you create a sound file. It's such a simple tool to use. There is one button to press Record. So you just need to talk into a microphone and record what you want to say. But it's powerful because that can then be passed around to anybody, and teachers have found it really useful to summarize what has been said. Another set of tools is the Google Docs tools. You can set up a sort of word processing package, or a spreadsheet, or anything along those lines that you would have in a normal office suite.

Task 2

REFLECTION OVER THE EXPERIENCES IN FUTURE LEARN

Experiences

I often think of blended learning as the process of teaching students how to learn. A well-suited proverb for blended learning goes, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Blended learning pushes students to own their learning and become lifelong learners beyond their years in school. Students become self-driven and responsible, tracking their individual achievements. They learn to find the resources or get the help they need, self-advocating so they can reach their goals.

I was very excited. I was just accepted into a fabulous professional development program, as a learner. It’s a five weeks course in Future Learn platform named blended learning classes, collaborative group work, and online discussions. The beauty of blended learning and using open tools is the fact you can dip in and dip out of the different types of learning experience and learning strategies. So you still have discussions within the classroom. You still have written work to do. You still have posters to create, whatever it might be.

   One of the most important facts I learned in week 1 is that a "blended classroom will engage students in an exciting learning environment filled with choice, opportunity, and an individualized education. This is also a very powerful message, summing up how technology is definitely shifting gears in the education system. I also got an opportunity to explore the different teaching online standards. When I first enrolled this programme , I was having difficulty navigating through the lessons and assignments. The format is very different and more detailed from any other course I've taken and it took me a while to really understand how to submit assignments.

 After completing the activities and readings in week 2, I learned the importance of the classroom environment to support the Blended Learning programme. Depending on what model the teacher chooses, she needs to make sure there is ample room for meeting with students and group or independent work. It was very interesting to see our peers comments regarding being apart of a blended learning environment. It seems like all students had a positive experience in the BL classroom. This module also allowed me to take a step back and to evaluate my Blended Learning lesson  from a different perspective. Instead of being the creator of the lesson itself, I was able to view my lesson as an evaluator. Being in this position and having accessibility to various resources to evaluate my Blended Learning environment enabled me to see my strengths and weaknesses. While, watching the videos , I was able to take notes on what I need to improve on.

This course helped me grow personally and professionally by creating and implementing standards-based instruction because I was able to create lessons to meet the needs of my students.

Strength

I learned some of the material independently and this programme helped me to apply the learning in a more facilitated learning environment. I found that Blended Learning engaged the students more and that facilitated a more interactive classroom environment. The length of the actual classroom time was reduced, thus reducing exhaustion, at the same time, classroom interactions were more productive through group work. The blended programme encouraged me to use the out-of-classroom time in meaningful activities. Online quizzes helped students identify those areas that they need to review; questions, which gave immediate feedback on student answers, were helpful. Submitting homework, viewing course material, course objectives and reading material online was convenient. Use of multimedia and external links was useful to understand the subject. Posting class materials (PowerPoint presentations), assignments for formative and summative assessments and instructions for presentations and external links for reference, tutorials and self-directed learning topics saved classroom time. Online objective tests for self-assessment were graded automatically and instantly. Students’ grades in the online grade-book gave them convenient access. Creating online surveys for class sessions evaluation was instant. Blended Learning created a dialogue outside of the classroom among students and teachers, by discussions and forums provided in the software.

Weakness

Blended Learning depends upon concretization, coordination, collaboration and communication across the organization, the reason why it is not so easy to do. Other weaknesses include poor Internet connectivity and speed, which is a must when time-limited online assignments are given. Both software and hardware are expensive. Certain configurations on the laptops or desktops had to be enabled to access Blended Learning. Time limit on certain assignments made it stressful.

Recommended ideas for improvisation

Confusing instructions can cause disengagement when using blended learning ideas. Without a good understanding of the work required, learning will be slow. It’s far easier for a student to disengage from the learning activity. The instructions have to be clear for students. The content the student is working through must also be so. Some accents were quite difficult to understand as we are from Asia so the tutors should be quite aware of this problem.

Question session

1. What is Blended Learning?

2. Tips to use Blended Learning according to Diana Laurillard.

( please respond to this questions in my blog)

Task 3 - video on Blended Learning
https://youtu.be/rGG6SiT7Bzc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOieF5iDAGo&feature=youtu.be