Page 235 - BLENDED LEARNING

Keedwell’s (Chapter 13) blend on soft skills training, report-writing and giving
presentations, is a good example of isolated incorporation. In this design Keedwell
acknowledges that ‘the real-life differences between oral briefings and written
reports suggested a face-to-face briefings course and an online writing course’.
The design of Peachey (Chapter 5) and Dudeney and Hockly’s (Chapter 6) blends
also appear to reflect isolated incorporation. However, the majority of the blends
seem to adopt a parallel approach, typically with the face-to-face mode presenting
material and the online mode providing supplementary extension activities.
How will the modes be arranged in the timetable?
At its simplest the face-to-face sessions can be alternated with the computer
sessions in the timetable. The way the modes in the Bosnia and Herzegovina blend
were arranged is shown in Table 6. As the face-to-face element was the lead mode
it started the cycle in the timetable that was then followed by the computer session
and then the self-study session.
Table 6: Timetable for intermediate and upper-intermediate courses in
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Monday – Thursday Friday
90 minutes Class Class
45 minutes Computer Computer
45 minutes Self-study Self-study
60 minutes Class
30 minutes Computer
30 minutes Self-study

What is the optimal length of time for each session?
When putting the timetable together we also considered the optimal length of
time for each session, based on our beliefs as to what the maximum amount of
productive time that could be spent on the computer or during self-study was.
This also varied according to the learners’ level and at elementary and pre-
intermediate levels the classroom sessions were limited to an hour and computer
and self-study to 30 minutes.

How many sessions will the timetable include?
Consideration was also given during the redesign process that I was involved in
to the optimal number of sessions per mode per day on our intensive courses.
As you can see in Table 6 at the higher levels there were six sessions per day, two
in each mode, and this was a reduction from eight that were in the original blend.
My rationale for reducing the number of sessions was to reduce the amount of
movement, both physical and mental, between the modes and to ‘streamline’
the course design by reducing its complexity.
How much choice will the learners be given in the blend?
Neumeier (2005) suggests that the modes within a blend can either be ‘optional’
or ‘obligatory’. More often than not the face-to-face mode is obligatory, as are
synchronous online sessions, but other sub-modes of CALL can be presented

232 | Conclusion