Group items tagged

"Blended learning is a disruptive innovation in education that can take many forms. Here, we look at what blended learning is, why it's spreading, and how it works in real and virtual classrooms. Join the conversation on blended learning below."

Good background information on blended learning. Pay particular attention to the footnotes.

"A blended learning approach combines face to face classroom methods with computer-mediated activities to form an integrated instructional approach." Leads to more links about blended learning as well.

"The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning  conditions performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.... Analysts noted that these blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions. This finding suggests that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se."

"Online learning is sweeping across America. In the year 2000, roughly 45,000 K-12 students took an online course. In 2009, more than 3 million K-12 students did. What was originally a distance learning phenomenon no longer is. Most of the growth is occurring in blended-learning environments, in which students learn online in an adult-supervised environment at least part of the time. As this happens, online learning has the potential to transform America's education system..."

6 models of blended learning, from Michael Horn: "Face-to-Face driver, Rotation, Flex, Online lab, Self-blend, Online driver."

Information on approaches to blended learning. Summary of the three NIIT models: Skill-Driven, Attitude-Driven, Competency-Driven.

Tons of links and resources on blended learning, from Diigo.

Three white papers from Innosight Institute. All are about K-12 blended learning. Very useful research.

A great explanation of the power of blended learning, whether or not you think Khan's Academy is the pinnacle of the practice. "Educational technology pioneer Salman Khan maps how online learning tools can help physical classrooms evolve to become hubs for creativity and hands-on experiences, and how Khan Academy and the Discovery Lab summer camp fit into that big picture."

"Seven years of research at the University of Central Florida (UCF) has found that blended courses--those that combine face-to-face instruction with online learning and reduced classroom contact hours--have the potential to increase student learning while lowering attrition rates compared to equivalent, fully online courses. This research bulletin reports the results of a disciplined UCF program that has led to a fundamental redesign of the instructional model."

Valuable reading, as understanding how these cycles reinforce learning leads to better planning for blended learning. The Pedagogy and Technology Workshop employs a cycle much like the first few diagrams. 

Online learning system used by High Tech High. Seems similar to Carnegie Learning. "Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces is a Web-based, artificially intelligent assessment and learning system. ALEKS uses adaptive questioning to quickly and accurately determine exactly what a student knows and doesn't know in a course. ALEKS then instructs the student on the topics she is most ready to learn. As a student works through a course, ALEKS periodically reassesses the student to ensure that topics learned are also retained. ALEKS courses are very complete in their topic coverage and ALEKS avoids multiple-choice questions. A student who shows a high level of mastery of an ALEKS course will be successful in the actual course she is taking."

Clearinghouse of really great blended learning info and resources.

Illustrates a lot of information from tine Innosight document, as well as several other sources. A bit busy but might be useful as a summary.

"Browse and use standards-aligned curriculum." Some free, some paid.

The 800-lb gorilla of online math learning. Carnegie Learning's Cognitive Tutor is an adaptive, differentiated learning system in which student understanding is assessed and individually addressed as part of the learning process. It's truly an amazing system, but it's not modular -- in other words, you won't get the best use of it pulling out items for use in your curriculum, because the system's curriculum is intended to be used in full. But it might be worth considering -- results show huge results from this system. See http://www.carnegielearning.com/research/reports/

"Resources and Annotations from UW-Stout's E-Learning and Online Teaching Graduate Certificate Program. Contributors are mainly from the E-Learning for Educators Course & the E-Learning Practicum Course."

Skip Via explains personal learning networks, or PLNs. Slightly out of date at this point (e.g. Google Wave is gone) but a great explanation of how differentiated learning can happen online.

A classroom music experience in which 24 kids (many on iPads) and several professional musicians collaborated on a piece of digital music. The piece they created may not shatter any sales records (though it is actually on sale in the iTunes store), but it's certainly not bad for student work. It's unclear how long they worked on this piece, or how many takes were involved, but the resulting music and video are good. And the students are left with a downloadable song that they created. So here are my questions: - are these students learning music? - is their learning transferable to real instruments? - to tweak Sting's words: is technology a legitimate teacher in this case?