Page 110 - BLENDED LEARNING

(as is the popular demand) must now be addressed in a different way – through
features like the online quiz facilities. It is still a difficult task though to persuade
some that in fact it would be more productive for them to make the quiz themselves,
so much ends up duplicated (the course provider supplied version and the versions
participants go on to make themselves once they see the benefit).

Trainees (and tutors) have very different relationships with and awareness of
technology. Some cope well with exploring on their own and have a natural instinct
to try and forge their own path through the course. Others want considerably more
support and to be told what to do and in what order. Over time we have put more and
more in place to support people as they get started, to show them how they might
start. Despite this there are still those who fall by the wayside and see the technology
as the cause. Emails come in saying ‘I’ve never done an online course before and
I’m feeling very lost’, where in fact the difficulties of getting started with the pro-
active approach that would make them most successful are about time management,
self awareness and research skills and have always been needed (and have always
been a challenge for some). Lack of familiarity with the technology makes it an easy
scapegoat, but it may also be an additional obstacle to be overcome. The more we
add, the more time is required to work through things that are actually only in place
to ensure people are equipped with the study skills they may need to deal with the
course. ‘Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies is the notion that a person
learns only the particular thing he is studying at the time.’ (Dewey1998: 49). Some
participants make the meta-leap and realise that they have also been covertly shown
how they could deliver some or all of the language learning process to their students
in a blended format.

Issues for the future
Our aim is to deliver a training course that promotes participant interaction and self
responsibility and in which tasks are optional. The premise behind the approach is
supported by sociocultural theory (Vygotsky 1978, 1986) which sees learning (and
language) as a social process. Put simply, language use is shaped by what kind of
activity we are doing and who we are doing it with (Halliday, 1993), and for Vygotsky
and socio-constructivists, such language use with others is the essential mediating
tool in our cognitive development. However, in a blended programme, as well as
in a face-to-face format, there are participants who prefer information delivered
in a transmission mode rather than a more participant-centred ‘learning through
discussion’ style. The very flexible nature of the formats and the ability to keep
adding things in response to feedback and in response to how the course is used
means we are more able to deliver more options and a greater variety of learning
experiences in a way that was not feasible in the purely face to face version of
the course.

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