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This article covers information about the successful development of blended learning environments that have the capacity to support and improve traditional face-to-face- and online learning environments.   Blended learning strategies showcases instructional model's growth and potential to spark new conversations about how blended learning can address a range of instructional needs in new and highly productive ways.  The benefits of blended learning instructional models extend educational learning experiences beyond the classroom face-to -face environment and they have the capacity to improve and to personalize learning experiences without commensurate increases in budget or staff, and it explores efficacy and prevalence data, recaps innovative and builds upon the practical implementation models of existing institutions of learning.    

Michael Moore uses the pedagogical categories of dialogue, structure, and autonomy (Moore & Kearsley, 2012, pp. 209-214), which, in our course reading for this week, Peters (2004) refers to as the three constitutive elements of distance education. According to Moore's theory of transactional distance, the interrelation of these three categories influences transactional distance, which is the mental or psychological distance experienced by students learning in a distance education environment. For example, Moore's theory states that in a course where there are high levels of dialogue, transactional distance tends to be lower, whereas a higher level of transactional distance often exists in courses where there are low levels of dialogue.

The concept of andragogy was made popular by Malcolm Knowles in the 1970s. Knowles' ideas stemmed from the belief that teaching and learning approaches for adults should be fundamentally different from those for children and are based on the belief that the more mature a learner becomes, the more self-directed the learner will be in his or her own learning. The andragogical approach is a holistic, learner-centered model comprised of the following six principles: Learner's need to know:Adult learners want to decide what will be learned, and when and how it will be learned. Self-concept of the learner:Adult learners want to plan and direct their learning. Prior experience of the learner:Adult learners have a wide range of past experiences to draw from in understanding and applying what they learn. Readiness to learn:Adult learners want to understand the relevance of what they are learning to them and to their environment. Orientation to learning:Adult learners prefer a problem-centered approach to learning. Motivation to learn: Adult learners are internally, rather than externally, motivated to learn (Knowles, Swanson, & Holton, 2011, p. 3)

http://www.ectel07.org/cfps/callforpapers.2008-07-01.1750270947 Web 2.0 has become a major technology that supports content publishing over the Internet. Web 2.0 refers to an expected second generation of Web technology that allows people to create, publish, exchange, share, and cooperate on information (knowledge) in a new way of communication and collaboration. The Web 2.0 technology makes the Web not only for browsing, but also for creating and sharing. The success of Web 2.0 heavily relies on interactive communication and collaboration among people over the Internet - where are the people; what people possess; whether people are willing to communicate; how a group of people can be formed as communities of practice; and how people can work together trough new generation of interactive social software such as Wikis, Blogs, RSS feeds, podcast, Ajax-based browsers, peer-to-peer, instant messenger, and other social networking software. Some successful examples of Web 2.0 applications are Wikipedia, YouTube, MySpace, and Flickr. The Web 2.0 is shifting economical value of the Web to new business models for the next generation of Web technologies and interactive e-learning. One of the essential goals of applying Web 2.0 technologies to interactive e-learning is to enhance interactive communication and collaboration among participants in the Web-based learning. By participants, we refer to the learners who either possess related learning resources, or can help to discover and obtain the resources, or are willing to exchange and share the resources with others. By learning resources, we refer to the participating learners and available learning content and services. In Web 2.0, learners are co-learners as well as co-authors. They can read and write to the Web, in which learners become the consumers and producers of learning resources. As a result, the critical challenges of Web 2.0 for interactive e-learning is how to identify the right co-learners, find the right conte