To blend or not to blend...

Image from: common:wikipedia.com

I am up late again. My wife and kids have gone to sleep and I am up on my computer, not watching TV, but rather reading. Reading about blended learning and the power in can have on learning. This is something that I am drawn to on a daily basis. 

I have experience as a high school physics teacher. I had the privilege to teach before and after having one to one devices in the hands of my students. I currently work as a tech integration specialist in Belton School District and support our learning in the 21st century in a larger one to one environment. What that means to me is that I know our students can have access to their learning anytime, anywhere. What that also means is are we transforming the learning experience in our schools? 

After reading the chapter one from #BlendKit2015  I became impressed with the notion about quality blended learning courses. For the longest time I felt that we were blending our learning by simply granting access to students to devices, but it is so much more than that. An area that we could spend hours and days on would be course and curriculum design and development. Teachers need to have time to time ask the questions for their courses as mentioned in the chapter:

“What’s the best mix of traditional, live, teacher-led presentation and synchronous or asynchronous, technology-driven methods of teaching?” It is important to determine your role as a teacher in the learning process. Should it be one that is primarily directive or facilitative? Also, decide the importance of interaction amongst the students. These questions may be answered differently depending on the teaching/learning context. In any event, blended learning lends itself to learner-centered, teacher-guided (as opposed to teacher-directed), interactive, and student-collaborative learning."

https://blended.online.ucf.edu/blendkit-course-blendkit-reader-chapter-1/ 

I think as a teacher sometimes we forget to step away from the microscope and see the collection films to ask those guiding questions and re-plan our path. These questions about the purpose of the learning needs to be established before we should just do the same old activity that we had done before. 

After understanding blended learning through this reading I ask myself these questions:

1. How can blended learning should support the learning experience?
2. What strategies should I use in a particular learning experience? 
3. What is the learning experience principal? What learning tools will support that principal?

By asking these questions I believe you will focus more on learning and less on tech tools. The process of learning will include blended components and this will transform your experience.