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Understanding Blended Learning

Focus Question

What will my blend be?

Objectives

After completing all of this week’s activities, you should be able to:

  • Identify the general benefits of blended learning
  • Recognize a range of implementation options possible in developing blended learning courses
  • Articulate design plans for “blending” one of the courses you teach

Readings

If you haven’t already done so, please select the online/offline version of the BlendKit Reader that is best for you. In addition to the individual chapter linked below, the complete reader is available as an ebook (epub or Kindle formats), pdf, or in HTML.

This Week’s Chapter

Chapter 1: Understanding Blended Learning [html file; size=45b]

Highlights

If you’re pressed for time, focus on the following excerpt from Chapter 1:

Two Case Studies of Blended Learning Design

 Reading Reaction

Document your reaction to this week’s reading  in your blog or other public platform.  If you are participating in the BlendKit course, you may enter your reaction in the Reading Reaction: Chapter 01 activity in the Canvas BlendKit course.  Bloggers, if you want to earn a badge for this activity, please enter the direct URL to your blog posting in the Week 01 Blog activity in the Canvas BlendKit course.

DIY Project Tasks

This week’s development task is to conceptualize your blended learning course. We’ll operationalize this a bit by producing two design documents:

  1. Course Blueprint: Blank template with instructions [Download docx; Download doc]
    Makes evident the existing design of your course along with any gaps. Think of the Blueprint as a working draft.  Use it to guide your thinking about other development tasks in the weeks ahead.
  2. Mix MapBlank template with instructions [Word doc; size=45kb]  Completed sample [pdf file; size=24kb]
    Allows you to begin making decisions about what will happen face-to-face v. online v. in-between in your blended learning course. There are countless approaches to leveraging the component modalities. Just beware of developing two parallel courses!

Blogging/Social Networking

Post to your blog your thoughts related to this week’s activities. For a list of ideas to blog about or for help getting started, please see the BlendKit Course blogging resources.  To earn a badge, please enter a direct URL to your blog posting in the Reading Reaction: Chapter 01 and Week 01 Blog activities in the Canvas BlendKit course.

Not into blogging? Consider sharing your quick thoughts related to the readings, the DIY tasks, or any related topic via Twitter. If you’re using Twitter, please include the hashtag #BlendKit2017.

You might also consider using the Diigo social bookmarking site to bookmark (and comment upon) any helpful web resources you’ve found this week. These might be links you followed from the course materials or resources you found on your own. If you join the BlendKit “group” on Diigo, you’ll be able to share bookmarks directly with the group. You might consider taking a look at this brief Flash-based tutorial on Diigo groups if you haven’t used Diigo groups before.

Want to try something completely different? Take a digital photo related to blended learning in general or this week’s topics in particular. Post it to Flickr, and tag it with  “blendkit.” (See blendkit tagged items on Flickr.)

If you are participating in the BlendKit course and wish to earn a badge for contributing to our information stream during Week 01, please submit the direct URL to your social media posting in the Week 01 Info Stream assignment in the Canvas BlendKit course.

Commenting

Take a few minutes to read the BlendKit Course blog postings of others, and leave behind a comment or two. You may find such blog postings by exploring the list of blogs posted by other participants. (You can find tips for making blog comments on Grammar Girl’s web site.)

Recorded Real Time Session

Watch the recording on YouTube.

Have Feedback?

How’s it going so far? Have suggestions for making the BlendKit Course better? Please don’t hesitate to send an email to the BlendKit team at anytime. However, we’d also love to compile everyone’s quick feedback via the Week 01 Feedback Form. Please consider taking a moment or two to let us know how the BlendKit Course is going for you.