Blended Learning Jazz: Spontaneous, Improvisational, and Smooth by Curtis Bonk #heartlandconf10

By Wesley Fryer On March 9, 2010 · · 1 Comment

These are my notes from Curtis Bonk’s presentation, “Blended Learning Jazz: Spontaneous, Improvisational, and Smooth” at the 2010 Heartland eLearning Conference hosted by the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. MY THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS. The Heartland eLearning conference is on Twitter, has a conference blog, and a Facebook fan page.

We had a wide assortment of experts writing our Handbook of Blended Learning (HOBLe)

1- models and frameworks
2- problems and solutions

this book is available on the Kindle
– this is pretty expensive though
– I really don’t recommend this book
– Randy Garrison and Gary Vaughn: very practical book on blended learning (better one)

Blended Learning in Higher Education: Framework, Principles, and Guidelines by D. Randy Garrison, Norman D. Vaughan

when do these blends make sense

who is demanding fully online and blended learning
– almost everyone in your classroom now expects some kind of blend

Campus Technology: Feb 2010 – Expectations Rising

What can you do?
– everystockphoto.com has images to use to supplement what you are doing
– available for free, to supplement

definitions of blended learning: what is it?

Sloan Foundation is wrong: they say 30 – 80% of a course
– I think any course online 1% or more is blended
– Sloan says that is a “web supplement”

I will give you 10 myths on blended learning

Myth 1: people will know what I am saying when I say “blended learning”
– some are programmatic, some are at the course level, some at the task level

Myth 2: blend is the same as “hybrid”
– corporate like word blended
– military likes word hybrid
– universities like “mixed”

Websters says Hybrid is breeding a mongrel
– I’ll stick with blended
– word came about around the same time

Sloan says:
0% traditional
1 to 29% web facilitated
30 – 79% blended/hybrid
80% or more: online

Myth #3: Knowing “how much” to blend is vital

PEW Course Redesign Project
– shows technology DOES make a difference

25 of 30 courses showed a positive impact from the use of technology in the courses, 5 showed no difference

Myth #5: blended learning is hard to define
– events that combine aspects of online and face to face (Rooney, 2003, p 26; others)

Graham, 2006
– has continuum looking at space, time, fidelity, and humanness
– traditional F2F going to computer-mediated

In the future we will just call it “learning environments,” we won’t talk about blended / elearning

Myth #6: blended learning works everywhere
Where is blended beneficial?
– large classes: spanish, intro psych, algebra, elementary stats, biology)
– classes with working students
– students spread over a distance
– classes with certification
– classes with need for standardization
– new requirements for a profession
– writing intensive classes
– theory classes

In Australia they call helpers “flexible learning consultants”

Correspondence is NOT as good as F2F, but some people don’t have that choice to make

today with blogs and wikis, kids are reading thousands of words per week and writing, and they don’t even know they are doing it

Examples of blended learning from Margaret Driscoll, eLearning, March 2002
– put assessments/reviews online
– follow-up in community of practice
– put reference materials on the web
– deliver pre-work online
– more

office hours online don’t work well

fully online and blended learning advantages
– increased learning (better papers, higher scores)
– course access at one’s convenience and flexible completion (multiple ways to meet course objectives)
– increased opportunities for human interaction, communication, and contact among students

also:
– introverts participate more
– more effective pedagogy and interaction
– reduction in physical class or space needs, commuting, parking,

Central Florida Univ: They actually have a ROI calculation

my international / Asian students tend to talk/interact much more online

Myth #7: people learn more in F2F settings

myth #8: faculty can have a logical discussion with administrators about blended learning
– activity level
– course level
– program level
– institution level

instructors are at the top of these options, admins at the bottom
– concerns are different

some instructors blend at the course level

you can do a course-level blend, program-level blending
– Beijing Normal does mix of F2F and blended learning
– Katrina opened up blended learning value

“Snomaggedon” recently on the east coast opened up a lot of faculty / educator minds to the value of blended learning

IBM uses a bookend model, another model is “anchor model” with F2F first

Myth #10: blended learning has exploded at the Univ of Phoenix
– 200K are F2F
– only 2000 are fully online
– Phoenix are trying to convert fully online to blended, because their retention goes up with blended
– Pheonix sees blended as the most powerfulbst model

Brian Linquist, 2006 research

IMB has Four Tier Learning Model (2006)
– from 2006 Hadnbook of Blended Learning, nancy Lewis, VP, and Peter Orton, IBM

THe OUM of Malaysia
Aug 2001: 800 students
2010: over 85,000 students
– just 60 full time instructors
– approx 3000 part-time tutors

Part II: 13 fully online and blended learning problems

Problem 1: you just get students for a week (brief F2F experiences)
– million dollar question: what can you do in 1 week
– do games, simulations, case-studies

list of sample activities for brief meetings
(….too fast to copy or read….)

student problem #2: student absenteeism
– students miss classto attend a conference or event or personal problem arises
– or students ask to watch the class a 2nd time

5 years ago, our university would not record anything for me
– now it is no problem

Berkeley is streaming everything
– I was watching Charles Munger the other day with Warren Buffet, talking about finance

SciVee, Research Channel, doFlick, UC

can alternate online and F2F meetings…

can stream class video for remote students

Problem #4: supplement your class with rich and engaging materials
– I am not teaching a course with a 32 page syllabus, with no books to buy: all articles and resources are on the public web

Khan Academy: videos on math, science, more…

United Nations Digital Library

OpenEd Resources and OpenCourseware: MIT

Problem #5: students want power / want to control the class
– I have students developing WikiBooks

project where students worked in groups to write chapters

Online PD: www.starlinktraining.org

Faculty creating videos about their ideas being commercialized, tech transfer (not sure what Univ that was)

Real-time Cases
– interviewing CIOs, CFOs, etc
– threw away pre-written cases, now has live cases students can stdy
realtime case studies

Collanos (similar to Groove which is gone, similar to SharePoint and Google Docs)

Use expert video for student reflections
– have students watch conferences on the web

recent international conference in the Philippines, keynote speakers came in with pre-packaged videos, then participants asked questions via the web

I hae written an article about 10 ways to build an online community, send me an email and I’ll send you that article