Supporting blended approaches

Blended learning can mean many things to different people. At one extreme of the scale is a classroom session backed up with some online reading material, books, background information.

At the other end of the scale? It’s not yet safe to say. Videoconferencing? !00% of the course material online? Synchronous or asynchronous communications? Instant access via the lecturers smartphone? Google Glass or VR headsets? It’s certain we have not got there yet. Still, it’s an exciting journey. Deciding in each case what will be the most appropriate delivery method is the important thing.

I consult, with the people who are commissioning my courses (i.e. my customers), and am open to all options. Should the course be online or face-to-face? Or a combination of the two? What should go where? How can we best use the students time? How much are we expecting them to know as pre-knowledge? How big is our intended audience? Are we expecting them to travel? How certain do we need to be that they leave the classes knowing what it is that we wanted to teach them? Will they expect to be tested? If not, how do we demonstrate the effectiveness of our courses?

These are all everyday questions. I ask them in every course I write. It is part of providing a professional service and the best for both customers and leaners. We need them to decide time and budget constraints, the aims and objectives, the scope, how the course will be built and delivered. I provide creative and effective solutions. I’m enthusiastic about e-learning, but I’m just as enthusiastic about getting the right solution for my client, and the learners.