The successful implementation of blended learning relies on many factors. Some participants give a percentage between the traditional classroom and the online settings. Regardless of the proportion and regardless of how academics define "blended learning," an important factor is the segment (the target segment) of students catered. Not all students have the adequate and right motivation to engage actively in learning. To this segment of students, the blended learning is a weakness.

Thus, MOTIVATION (other than SEGMENTATION) is critical. Managing motivation needs crafting the assessments (or the "BLENDED" assessments). I associate "blended" to "assessments" to highlight the use of non-traditional assessments (e.g., the traditional test and exam).

And if academics have to EXPLORE "blended" assessments, such as evidence-based portfolio, then a more important aspect to consider is the crafting of innovative CURRICULUM.

The chain of reasoning (or consideration) is: CURRICULUM -> ASSESSMENT -> MOTIVATION -> PRACTICE (blended teaching and learning) -> OUTCOME.

My feeling is that it is almost impossible to answer your question because it is so broad. Advantages and limitation for whom? For Educational institutions? For the learners? And what kind of learners, and for what kind of learning? I think that if you start narrowing down your search, you might be able to find some useful answers.

Hi from Plymouth in England. We offer blended learning MScs in sustainable construction and note the following advantages:

The contact element (in our case, two or three long weekends a year on campus) enbable learners to meet and form relationships with their peers and their tutors and university support staff. In our case, every module starts and ends with a contact session. These sessions also help staff get to know the students personally and to motivate their learning thorough face-to-face keyonte lectures, 'master-classes' etc.

In our case the other element is distance learning, which we deliver in 18 week slots supported by both hard copy and online resources. Clearly, this mode supports the 'earn and learn' needs of working students. we find this works well, although many learners under-estimate the amount of 'study' time they need to devote to succeed well. In many ways, the combination seems ideal, as long as the learners are relatively motivated.

Any of this helpful?

Hi from Milano! In the last five years I always chose blended learning, when I could, that is when the number and the origin of the participants let it. I agree with Paul when he writes about the contact element as important to create collaboration among the students. Surely a didactic methodology which includes different approches let you to get better results, even if you can think that it requests more organizational task. Follow Antonella's suggestions, too!

Dear friends, Thre are some literature about this topic? I'm starting a research in order to identify the reasons because in a group of municipal leaders in latinamerica (22), the proposed virtutal course to teach how to create e-gov strategies failed... less than 30% of the initial participants approved the course. Is the participants profile? Is the core theme? Is the tech?... or this is a regular rat of failing?

I'm going to assume that "blended learning" means a combination of in classroom and online instruction (how we sue it at my university). I tend to do a 60/40 split (40% in class) and I'm a big proponent of this approach.

1. Considerable advantages for part-time and mature students as it is more flexible (fewer fixed hours in a classroom) and has potential to be more respectful of different learning styles

2. Students tend to participate more and online in particular I have tools for ensuring that no one is hiding behind the more vocal students

3. I tend to use multiple short assignments and blog post requirements to ensure accountability and to easily identify students who are having difficulty

4. Students do more work

5. By having some classroom time I can take care of any skills pieces and have the opportunity to set up some group work assignments.

I suggest as a limitation some strategies usually used to check the learning as essays or quizzes, due to the students use the virtual classrooms avoid to make their research deeply outside the classroom and just used the content avaliable in this space (commonly in bachelor degrees)

The term "blended learning" is too broad because we do not know which component is prominent in a particular system. If we talk about a main stream educational system where a certificate will be given after completion of the schedule, I feel the major part should contain face to face teaching. On line modules may be used as supporting tools like tutorials. I strongly propose this because otherwise the students may accumulate misconceptions that may cause extremely high work load on a teacher to rectify the same.

Just some inputs from Belgium.

Advantages :

- Get time to foster deep learning avoiding teaching (transmissive)

- Best uses of training space-time

- Some differentiation allowed

- openness to skills (fuzzy skills) development

Limitations :

- Difficulties in assessment

- Learning overload

Marcel

Also a survey about hybrid pedagogical setups in http://hy-sup.eu (in french)

In my experience the international students prefer this mode of learning as they can balance their work and learning times. However, this in itself causes problems in that the face to face learning times assume less importance and student exposure can be as short as 15% of the total semester. Such students tend to get comparitively lower grades. One way to deal with this issue is to limit learning 50-50 face to face and online learning.

The successful implementation of blended learning relies on many factors. Some participants give a percentage between the traditional classroom and the online settings. Regardless of the proportion and regardless of how academics define "blended learning," an important factor is the segment (the target segment) of students catered. Not all students have the adequate and right motivation to engage actively in learning. To this segment of students, the blended learning is a weakness.

Thus, MOTIVATION (other than SEGMENTATION) is critical. Managing motivation needs crafting the assessments (or the "BLENDED" assessments). I associate "blended" to "assessments" to highlight the use of non-traditional assessments (e.g., the traditional test and exam).

And if academics have to EXPLORE "blended" assessments, such as evidence-based portfolio, then a more important aspect to consider is the crafting of innovative CURRICULUM.

The chain of reasoning (or consideration) is: CURRICULUM -> ASSESSMENT -> MOTIVATION -> PRACTICE (blended teaching and learning) -> OUTCOME.

Currently working with B-Learning and the great difficulties I identify are:

- Lack of student skills to study independently;

- Mediation of the teacher or tutor for the construction of knowledge;

- Poor technological infrastructure, particularly in relation to access to the internet;

- Accumulation of activities by the students. Some enroll in more than one course at the same time believing that the course distance is "easier" to attend, as it has classes every day.

Swiss Distance University offers a B Sc program in Psychology with blended learning (3 hours face to face learning on 5 weekends for each class plus online instruction and homework with individualized feedback). The main advantage when compared to pure Distance Universities is the number of students who complete their studies. So far, we have two complete cohorts and the overall drop-out rates were 66% and 50%. The drop-out rate is much higher in pure on-line programs without face to face components (drop-out can have various reasons such as bad grades, lack of motivation or time etc). The classroom allows for deepening a particular topic, vivid discussions, and active reflection. The students see their peers, learn that they have similar questions, and they mutually help out.

Hello from Universidad Latinoamericana –Apollo Group-, Mexico.

We have a very successful blended program for adult’ learning and we have also online learning offers. In my experience, one of the advantages from blended programs versus online is the socialization and face-to-face networking options it offers. Human contact is still very important for students, even more when we are talking about adults who are migrants to ITC and are used to classical learning styles. The blended options allow them to have a more smooth transition from classic learning styles to new ones based on ITC systems.

One of the disadvantages or limitations I see is that this models as well as online ones, necessarily needs self-sufficient students in order to be successful without the continuous supervision of teachers.

Kind regards,

I have been teaching blended biology courses for some time and a few years ago I published my impressions and a wee bit of data on the experience. The publication is at the link below. Suffice it to say that I am an enthusiastic booster of blended learning in any discipline, and especially in a science course, becuase it allowed be to cover the same or more material as in the traditional course and to use interactive teaching techniques to more deeply engage my students. Here is the link to the article:

http://sloanconsortium.org/jaln/v15n1/content-vs-learning-old-dichotomy-science-courses

Your question is to general. Belnded means a mix between on line ir distande education and face to face, dependent on the group of students the topics the goals ect you blend. In other words you choose the amount of face to face ortraning on the job and self study with the learning sources on line in such a way that the learning goals are optimal served.

Blended learning approaches incorporating face-to-face contact and online resources suits my particular student cohort of postgraduate students who reside in metropolitan, regional and rural parts of our state in Australia. The benefits of face-to-face contact include that there is a connection and interactions between peers and academics, to support students in their motivation for study. Some students would like more face-to-face contact but the majority enjoy the independence afforded them through online activities. When students do meet in face-to-face forum there are meaningful discussions and sharing of practice experiences that also contribute to learning. My belief is that a carefully constructed timetable in a trimester/semester of study strongly supports blended learning approaches.

I would say it would depend upon the course of study and the level. An important component of undergraduate school is the socialization aspect as many of the students are living away from home for the first time and need peer interaction to develop socially. This becomes less important in graduate school, especially for those who have gone back to earned advanced degrees in the 40s, 50s or even 60s when personalities have solidified. While taking an acting class on line sounds absurd, earning a masters and PhD online in psychology where most of the work is independent research and writing, face-to-face classes seem less essential. At Walden we are required to do four residency courses where students meet for 4-5 days and have intense interaction. This has satisfied my need to meet and know other students and instructors while allowing me full autonomy to study and write at a convenient time and place without having to spend time driving to campus, parking, walking etc. I find the one-on-one interaction with the professors in the online arena to be much more complete as communication is done verbally without the distraction of nonverbal communication. It's just the words which reveal the thought processes on which advanced degrees are based. My take any way. Your thoughts?

As with any educational method (if you want to call it that, maybe it's more of a kind of institutionalized framework) blended learning is netiher good or bad by itself, it's about how it is done and who does it. Face-to-Face contact can be a great help, but not if you don't like the teachers or other students (or the place you meet at). Online material can enable you to learn on your own at your own pace, but maybe the material ist bad, or the learner lacks motivation or the platform is just not suited for the kind of learning that is needed. So I'd say there are no advantages or disadvantages other than that it might or might not work, for which many examples have been given here. I guess you just have to try it in your specific context.

agree with many of the perspectives added but I do think blended learning is more than a structure. I find I manage my class much differently and have opportunities to use a broader range of teaching strategies and find it easier to engage and monitor each student.

Banning Lary has hinted at an important point. On-line education has an audit trail that can authoritatively be invoked in cases of student claims of inadequate lecturer interaction (and vice versa).

Dear All,

I am a bit behind, sorry have been helping in a wedding which was last Saturday. I find the comments very interesting. The programme we devised was as you know an MSc in Public Health which was a taught programme, with 11 week terms to be completed in one calendar year. So the students commence in October and complete in September with graduation in November for the October group. In recent years we have added a February. In 2006 we had many enquires but these did not turn into application. After a survey it was obvious there were a few people who could not attend taught session. So we validated a distance learning pathway. The students registered on line, and all the material was online. Initially we used Wimba, but that had too many problems in that for me and the team being non-computer expert it was too difficult to alter by ourselves so there were delays. Now we are using Articulate and have employed a team member who can manage this system. It is a bit like using a power point and even I can use it. Back to the students they do not come in at all and some do not want to engage using skype. So some I never see, and some I only see at graduation. The course was re-validated last year on the same outlines (11 week terms) and appears to be going well. The only request was that our distance learning group should be part time, so completing over 2 years. I am not sure if they have any international students in this coming October group. We have had students from several countries and in the forces. Reason I do not know is my contract was complete at the end of March and I have only a very limited VL contract. To do it this way is demanding and have a team member responsible for this group I feel is a must, especially as we lived for 4 years without one. So it is not really blended learning for this group. Our taught group is 50% UK and 50% overseas this latter group prefer a taught system. There sponsors like it completed in one year. So it is hard work for both them and the team.

I think this is definitely the way forward for those who cannot attend, since it is up to the student how they want their studies to progress we do not need an audit. The taught group attend only 2 days and use the other days to fulfil the learning outcomes of the Units (4 unit per term, term 3&4 their dissertation). The student can complete on a part time basis but must finish within 5 years.

I am not sure I have answered any points made. Susan

It is difficult to answer the question under this terms. You should answer to yourself first. Are your sure that all students are autonomous and responsable learners. The conceptual hability or competence to learn can be fully attained and can also be evaluated the adquired knowledge or skill by one method. Usually. not, even in presential learning

the verbal communication skills and manuals skills, are very difficult to teach and evaluate.

Plan a good set of strategies in blended learning is not just suited. Is a requirement.Part of the strategies ought to be significative participation both in the classroom, as in the platform. both for practitioners, and university students

Dear Sivakumar Palaniyandi,

In answer to your question “What are the advantages and limitations of Blended learning?” How to answer this? The most important thing for us was to have a team who felt this was one way of going forward. If your team are not on board it will fail. You need to use a very simple online package, I personally tried many and even though we choose Wimba, it was not fine for us as none of us had good programme knowledge. You could find a small error such as a spelling mistake, and it would give you the line number but when you went to find it there were no numbers on the text. We had a little dabble with Elicitus but out the University would not support it. Hence we are now using Articulate.

You need plenty of time to change your units into Articulate or other programme. We gave ourselves 6 months to complete the first 4 units and it took us that time to perfect it. So all in all it took us a year to change everything. Initially we did it on top of our work that was wrong as we lived and die work. Hence the recruitment of a team member who could handle the programme is essential. Mainly because Public Health does not standstill and we are constantly changing it.

Advantages are for the students and a sense of satisfaction to the team in achieve another dimension to the course. I hope this helps. Susan

In on line education it is difficult to incorporate feedback. Even if you arrange to include that the response time will be too low and therefore important portions of a course should never be scheduled online.

Regarding on line feedback, we give it on the assignment as we mark on line. Then we offer an overall comment. Once seen by the student they can ask for any clarification. If they need specific help for example referencing or how to do a literature review we would refer them to the library. If it is construction or English they can be referred to the skills unit. So far we have not had any problems.

All aspects can be completed online, but it may depend on the subject being covered. Susan

Blended Learning, a mix approach of available teaching methodology is a great advancement in pedagogy. It is more bias to student centric teaching environment. More important thing is not how it is defined but how we practically initiate it in our institutions. As teachers we take our freedom of considering the knowledge delivery methods.

The advantages of blended learning are more understandable. It should be compared with fully traditional method and as well as fully e-learning environment. Since it is a mixed of above two methods most of the weaknesses are eliminated. The advantages and disadvantages should categorize in teacher point of view as well as student point of view and institutional point of view. At first level you should collect all the points and then try to break them down.

Precisely blended learning provides a learning environment with

- Teacher Student interaction with physical existence

- Proper guidance

- 24 / 7 access of teaching materials

- Re-usability of teaching materials and lecture sessions

- Better communication opportunities between teacher-student and among peers.

- Easy Teacher and Student evaluation

- Easy student monitoring

- Student privacy can be managed easily

But it needs to overcome the following drawbacks also.

- Student and teachers are not equally competent with the technology

- Resources may not equally distributed or accessible

- Some students may not like to use on-line materials and online references

- Special needs students should also be considered while creating the materials.

- Extra work for the teachers will effect the teaching quality

- Student language ability will not be able to track easily

- High technical knowledge is needed to track Plagiarism and technological fraud.

- Great effort should be made to keep high performance, secure and reliable server to maintain the on-line teaching platform.

If the blended learning establish in an institution in the correct way after doing a depth analysis of the present teaching system, it will enhance the educational and the teaching quality of the system with the student enthusiasm.

Dear Iroshini Ratnapala,

I agree that it needs to be well thought out. After our experience these can all be met. The Unit leads get to know the students very well so apart from seeing them the nature of our knowledge is the same.

We use Turintin to ensure that plagiarism is minimised. One think which was interesting was the audit showed our DL students had higher grades on average to the taught group. The reason may be they did all the exercises whereas the taught group often missed them out as they were optional.

Extra time I agree, nobody should go into this area thinking it is a cheap option as it is not and we charge the same rate for all students regardless of DL or taught so in this way it has covered the cost of the hours needed to run the programme.

Susan

Blended learning is a highly valued experience by most students. The options to use blended learning for many courses exists today as most have an online component when created, even when the course is taught in the classroom. At present we use Blackboard at the University of Calgary and the site serves as a place to post all relevant materials. I find that while we expect students to be engaged in BB, that the "hot topics" are quite riveting for students and get a lot of attention. I had an experience last summer teaching a blended learning undergraduate and graduate class. Both groups were enrolled in the same BB site so all could mutually benefit from the discussions. The amount of time the students spent on BB was unexpectedly high and their engagement had me reconfigure the mark higher for BB participation based on that experience. I also find that if I jump into the conversation this helps with engagement and students know I am reading their postings. Another feature I use is a forum for students to post links of interest on the topic for others. This worked well. I also created an assignment where students have to choose two social media links that support their main points and embed these links in their assignment. As the course is related to social work, students find the most interesting sites and educate me in the process.

As much of our education is now delivered via distance, for courses that are fully online I schedule regular classes on the same night each week, and dependent on class size I get everyone to check in and give a brief update and this keeps them connected as well. I prefer Blended Learning to the sole use of Blackboard online but the reality that courses must be delivered at a distance also exists.

One more thing to share. I created a template for students to provide a "recommended grade" for their participation in Blackboard that was 30% of the course. I just finished an online summer course and found using the template was a useful tool. While it was clear that I assigned the grade, the students kept track of their own participation and discussions and my general experience was that they were honest in relation to their level of participation and lack of participation. It added an element that held students accountable for their learning in the online environment and it worked well. I created a chart that covered one week at a time and students had to document the following information: Activities on BB (introduction of self, attending weekly class via Elluminate, postings, discussions, links and other areas where you contribute). This framework offered a place for students to be more mindful of what they were doing on BB and provided a focus. At the end, each student submitted their template and recommended grade. I could confirm the level of participation through the course stats as well as my own awareness of engagement on the course site by students. This was very helpful and I could modify the grade as needed. In some cases a couple of students underrated their participation and a couple of students overrated. It was interesting and effective and may be a helpful framework for other instructors.

At undergraduate level, for two years I ran in parallel on-line and face-to-face (i.e., Lecture, handouts, plus LMS delivery) in order to work towards fully on-line. The marks both years were surprisingly higher than previously even though the student quality was quite different in the two cohorts. What this boils down to is, the more effort you put in, and the more media you use, the better the results.

Blended learning always works better, according to my experience too! I have been teaching UG , PG students for the last 29 years and the recent advances in technology have shown a marked increase in interest, initiative and grades in the students! Moreover, they are more aware, updated and strive to be with times ! I agree with Susan, the approach needs to be properly implemented, which will work excellently towards advancement of students !!

Dear Dorothy,

I found your points very interesting and parallel much of what we have discovered. Yes, we like you do produce a grading profile for each student so they can assess what is require to stay at a D or what needs to be achieved to gain an A. Our marking and grading will indicate where in there grading profile they have gained their marks. This they find useful and it does not matter if they have a D or and A they usually like to know how they can improve. All D grades will be offered extra help. Sadly some students are happy to bump along on a D. Susan

Advantages of Blended Learning:

1/ Reduces face to face class time, this gives more reflection and study time for students, in addition students can learn more at their own convenient time.

2/ Commuting time to university is reduced, hence students who live far away can have opportunities to learn.

3/ Transportation cost to the university is reduced, energy consumption and traffic jam are reduced too.

4/ Students learn independence and the use of technology.

5/ The cost of learning becomes less because a tutor with the assistance of technology can monitor many students.

6/ Technology increases the student’s engagement with the course, peers, and the tutor because technology ease the communication between individuals or groups.

7/ Electronic assessment gives immediate results and feedback.

8/ Student’s activities, and participations in the online learning process can be tracked electronically and evaluated.

Limitations of Blended Learning:

1/ Electronic assessment may not detect plagiarism.

2/ Students or tutors may not be well prepared or motivated to use technology.

3/ Sufficient and trained technical and administration support is required for online learning

4/ limitation may exist in the network bandwidth when huge number of users use the system simultaneously.

5/ There is always cultural resistance to change.

6/ Individualized and customized learning software may be needed to suite different types of learners

@ Faris Baker - Good insights. Reducing the face to face time is, in my opinion, a popular trigger to blended learning. However, the curriculum design is important to take into account STUDENT SEGMENT (student profile), STUDENT MOTIVATION, and using ASSESSMENT DESIGN to MOTIVATE learning.

How is the practice of executing blended learning in developing and developed countries? What are the gaps or blackbox in implementing these including percveptions of students, teachers and management body of education system ?

Blended learning will face all the battles that its component, distance education has: Convincing staff to convert, providing hardware, software, network support, especially so in developing countries.

As people all over the world move toward forming knowledge society, the need for education increases. Blended learning provides ubiquitous low cost education compared with traditional face to face education because it combines face to face with technology and internet. The need for going to the class on daily basis is reduced because communication can be easily performed through the internet. Technology provides tools that cut the geographic distances between students and their peers as well as between tutors and students. These tools currently consist of forums, emails, chats, blogs, wikis, e-portfolios and e-assessments.

@ Faris Baker - Good insight. Blended learning is good DEPENDING ON HOW THE BLEND IS RIGHT. The mixture is the most sensitive because skills development (know-how knowledge) and knowledge construction cannot be maximized without person-to-person interactions with peers or facilitators. Robot cannot coach but a passionate teacher or peer can. Robot cannot motivate. But a good leader can. I agree that blended learning provides opportunities for cost savings. But zero learning makes the cost saved zero. You have cited many tools to use. You are right. These tools are good if the curriculum design can blend these tools right, if the curriculum designer is innovative, and if the learners have the right motivation to engage in independent active learning. Since there are many IFs to factor in, then I would advice serious contemplation in designing and implementing it.

I encourage you to have a look at two papers I co-wrote where we looked at a blended learning course for mathematics. I have included the references below but they are also available from my publications plan. I think that blended learning is an appropriate approach to use in the current environment of students requiring to work and study.

Larkin, K. Jamieson-Proctor, R. & Finger, G. (2012). TPACK and pre-service teacher Mathematics education: Defining a signature pedagogy for Mathematics education using ICT and based on the metaphor ‘Mathematics is a Language’.  Computers in the Schools - Special Issue: Technology and Signature Pedagogies. 

Larkin, K. & Jamieson-Proctor, R. (2013).  Transactional Distance Theory (TDT): An Approach to Enhancing Knowledge and Reducing Anxiety of Pre-Service Teachers Studying a Mathematics Education Course Online. Paper presented at the MERGA36 - Mathematics Education: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Conference, Melbourne, (July 7-11, 2013)

Cheers, Kevin.

Blended Learning means a variety of structures, functions, and gadgets. I would also point to both (1) personal and (2) social challenges:

1. the motivational and self-regulations skills which learners need to invest into the process - and this is not really a given in all contexts

2. Some learners are high in social and affilation motivation. They need a blended learnning setup which also allows for social interaction, feedback, and team building.

So, blending it right is one challenge, creating a psychologically working learning environment, another.

The following two paraghraph is copy/paste from my doctoral thesis ;) ..good old days :)

Advantages:

 Less expensive to deliver, affordable and saves time

 Flexibility in terms of availability- anytime anywhere. In other words, e-

learning enables the student to access the materials from anywhere at any

time.

Access to global resources and materials that meet students’ level of

knowledge and interest.

 Self-pacing for slow or quick learners reduces stress and increases

satisfaction and retention.

 E-learning allows more affective interaction between the learners and their

instructors through the use of emails, discussion boards and chat room.

 Learners have the ability to track their progress.

 Learners can also learn through a variety of activities that apply to many

different learning styles that learners have.

 It helps the learners develop knowledge of using the latest technologies

and the Internet.

 The e-learning could improve the quality of teaching and learning as it

supports the face-to-face teaching approaches.

Disadvantages:

These might include little or no “in-person” contact with

the faculty member, feelings of isolations, a difficult learning curve in how to

navigate within the system, problems with the technology, the need for the student

to be actively involved in learning, and increased lead-time required for feedback

regarding assignments. There are also different aspects, especially in the developing countries, such as providing the required funds to purchase new technology, lack of adequate e-learning strategies, training for staff members and most importantly the student resistance to use the elearning systems.

 Lack of a firm framework to encourage students to learn.

 A high level of self-discipline or self-direct is required, learners with low

motivation or bad study habits may fall behind.

 Absence of a learning atmosphere in e-learning systems.

 The distance-learning format minimizes the level of contact, e-learning

lacks interpersonal and direct interaction among students and teachers.

 When compared to the face-to-face learning, the learning process is less

efficient.

In looking at blended learning environments and the comments from many of my colleagues here, the question(s)-and there are many is when should this technique be implemented? Grade school, high school, college? Using my grandson (4 years old) I note that his ability to use remote, my smartphone, and iPad is amazing. At the same time though, I have to wonder about how he will interpret and be taught how to critically analyze in a given environment on a subject matter. What will be the assessment model and will this be a standard across the curriculum? At the community college where I work as an academic librarian, there is a move to defer any first year student from entering an online course because many are not prepared to do academic work in this kind of environment; the digital divide is clear to many educators today. As such F2F contact is essential; many students have little or no inlking of disciplning themselves to interact in this environment on a daily basis-not only on the Tuesday or Thursday, Monday or Wednesday, that they have that particular class. Local, state and even the federal government, while infusing many colleges/universities with fundings for the latest technology to improve education across the country will not solve the problem alone. While I do teach two graduate courses at a senior college within my institution, even in these two courses, I find that some students are not where they need to be regarding blended learning, much less understanding the pedagogy in a F2F class. Yes, the cost factor goes down alot but if the student as some have already indicated here, did not learning anything, where are we saving? The blended learning environment has yet to produce that magic bullet for everyone. And while the need to make gaint leaps to improve education today is the mandate of many, we need to make sure it works so that when my four year old grandson or any child who graduates from high school, will be able to understand the significance of why the Founders wrote the "Declaration of Independance" and be able to articulate its relevancy and impact on American society today or any other subject matter that indicates they are information literate, can think critically, and arrive at a suitable place where they can come a viable conclusion.

There is nothing in the learning process without disadvantage(advantage is obvious). But I go for the principles and practice of " learning always needs human relations and interactions" so the one which lacks or gives scant attention to h8uman interaction is not the best.

Graduate school teaching is largely an apprenticeship where one teaches students by involving them in doing things rather than studying about them. To the extent that any teaching can involve learning by doing, I believe this approach offers advantages in involvement and in progress assessment that can make up for the extra efforts required. One can directly test a student’s ability to do things independently, their level of understanding, and the degree to which they have learned to approach problems based upon a problem’s particular aspects versus simply grouping things into certain types of problems and following a rote procedure to solve them. In guiding students while doing things and in assessing their progress, I find much can be learned simply by asking nested questions and considering their responses and how many guided questions it takes to move them toward useful solutions.

Dear All,

Sorry for the delay in making a comment but I have been in the USA for nearly 3 weeks.

Having read the above comments they have all pointed out the problems that need to be considered. It would be nice in the ideal world to meet all the students but this is not always possible especially when they live out of the area or country.

Having studied with the OU in the UK, some of my units I met the tutor but in others I did not as work would not always enable me to attend, secondly I was ill during my studies and therefore could not attend. Therefore I was pleased it was not a compulsory element, yes it was beneficial but not vital.

Like these groups it is good to keep them to a size whereby you can know the students through communication and methods such as Skype.

Having spoken to people while I was away I note their genuine concern about not meeting students which I do understand. Secondly worry about who wrote their work. I think if you know your student they will write in their assignments comments etc. which will indicate that it is from them. It is hard to discuss aspects without personal influences being included.

The one think I will definitely disagree with it is not a cheap option to a taught course if you are going to offer the student group a good experience. Tutor input is different but is increased when analysed against a taught group. So Ali although it may be some courses I would doubt form many. Yes, it does need to be structured we used several formats but we found articulate a very straightforward way to gain interaction

John, thank you for your points and I do agree. I do agree Ian that unless the team are motivate to using this mode it will fail. Kevin thank you for your references, yes the subject may also play a part. Public Health is an excellent format.

Having just been a guest of the colleague in the American Navy I can see that they are moving more to this type of courses. I still strong believe we can all make it work but have to believe in it.

Susan

Dear Suzy,

Re communication I agree, we mainly used SKYPE and email as the students were learning on their own. We did try video conferencing but the international time scale made it more unsuccessful.

Susan

Thank you for all contributors in this topic of interest. I agree with most of the comments here. Blended learning just lack a framework to guide its proper mix and effective use. Some institutions have their own frameworks while others have none. The problem so far is that blending has been left on the hands of tutors to decide. However, with the current technologies (e-learning systems, social networks, wikis, blogs, podcasts, mashups, rss,etc.) the issues of active interaction, engagement, and personalised or group assessments are resolved. We can blend with web technologies while keeping some face-to-face encounters.

I have experience with the b-learning because I organized a training program for nurses regarding the supervision of students in clinical. The program was supported by e-learning platform of the School, and was taught 250 nurses..

The main advantage was the potential of management time and other resources for all involved. The program contained a number of activities into sub-groups and individuals in the forum, wiki, documents of reflective practice, reading record, analysis articles. The fact that there are limits to deliver work on the platform, that were not completed were recorded in the system and led to the elimination of the participant was another advantage, enabling compliance and progress of the program.

The classroom sessions were also highly valued by participants for its character proximity with the teacher. Nursing as an art and science of caring human by human urges proximity to the face-to-face relationship. These sessions helped to reinforce this assumption and practice of nurses.

Dear Paula,

I agree with your sentiments as a professional lecturer. Susan

Thanks for your words, Susan!

But continuing to share my experience ...

There are also huge economic benefits, not immediately, with the continuity of education and looking respective programs, since the existence of an e-Learning platform in a school is an expensive first step. Only the continued use will maximize the benefits.

The design and structure of this program for nurses prepared / updated in the supervision of students in clinical practice, time and investment required in the preparation of guiding texts, selection of articles, definition of activities ... and even in its formatting and layout, and involved a persistent work of 4 teachers for 2 months.This investment will be recovered if the greater the number of participants to achieve greater "gains" because the system is most widely used, and the higher the frequency of the teaching program will also be more profitable.

Dear Paula,

How true. The team is very important if it is going to continue. If we can persist the student do definitely gain. Susan

Yes, team investiment in the organization and management of the program may be high but also reduced, depending on previous work, subject to teach or activities to be implemented with the students. The activities can be very focused or varied, depending on the aims. I think it may be the simplest (forum) to more complex (wikis) and the results can be of the same level.

On completion of the education program we chose the reflective portfolio, which increased its b-Learning format. Students were guided through the platform and the discussion of the portfolio was held in person with their teacher. This last time with the teacher / tutor, face-to-face, was again valued by students and teachers involved.

From the didactical point of view Blended Learning is beneficial if presence and online phases are sensefully connected and relate to each other. It becomes disadvantageous when presence and online compete with each other. Learners mostly prefer presence then.

Thanks a lot, Ian. English is not my native tongue, so I must apologize. I fixed the mistake...