Page 111 - BLENDED LEARNING

Conclusion
A blended training course is one where face-to-face and online components are
blended to deliver uniform opportunity in a training provision. Our course attempts to
cater to a range of participants’ learning styles and preferences; it provides interaction
between teachers following a traditional blending of face-to-face and online interaction
with teachers solely online from a range of teaching contexts and cultures negotiating
the course simultaneously.
What have we learned about blended learning? The online elements of our courses
enable us to offer a far wider range of learning options, but simultaneously require a
far more complex system of help, guidance and support. Storage, flexibility and access
mean more can be presented and learning pathways can be better individualised,
but that means more work not less for us as course providers. ‘Basing education
upon personal experience may mean more multiplied and more intimate contacts
between the mature and the immature than ever existed in the traditional school, and
consequently more, rather than less, guidance by others’ Dewey (1998: 8). Guidance
may include guidance as to how the course works, supplementing study skills/time
management and help with some digital literacies. Both participants and tutors need
support in using various facets of the technologies and as the Open University have
shown, need is not age related (Jones et al., 2010). To be convincing online material
has to be updated regularly and links have to be checked thoroughly before each
course and there needs to be a fast response to changes on the web that impact on
access to resources. There is no such thing as a ‘finished’ course. The more we learn,
the more we are aware of what more we need to do.

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