Blended online learning design (BOLD) research

Check out The Finest Blend (of Online and Blended Learning)

The Finest Blend - Athabasca University Press As Canadian universities work to increase access to graduate education, many are adopting blended modes of delivery for courses and programs. Within this

Hello dear friends and colleagues. Numerous colleagues and I have collaborated on presenting an overview on issues dealing with Educational Technology and online and blended graduate education across Canada. It will be published open access this coming June. See

Athabasca University Press - The Finest Blend AU Press publishes scholarly monographs, journals and websites. Electronic publications of AU Press are freely available online via open access.

Am currently writing a paper for the 22nd Values and Leadership Conf in LA this coming OCT on the Ethics of Online Learning Provision. It critiques various models of OL & BL from the standpoint of the learner and the conditions of learning afforded by institutions.

Just back from the Summit on the Future of the University held in Barcelona, Catalunya. Great gathering of academics from 10 countries. More later.

Preparing for the Future of Universities Summit to be held in Barcelona from 18-22 April. Will be a great chance to meet or reconnect with colleagues from around the world.

Currently working on an article on Instructional Design and Learning Design: the Nexus. Not a lot written on where the two connect, which is odd. Anyway, LD is exerting a powerful influence on design, especially in Higher Ed, so ID theorists and practitioners should sit up and take notice.

Am increasingly convinced that blended learning makes sense for undergraduate students (need for socialisation, access to labs and libraries, mentoring, etc.) whereas graduate studies appear to flourish in a synchronous (virtual classroom) and asynchronous (basic web site), combined technology environment which I call Blended Online Learning Design. BOLD is a combination of Blended Learning (in that it allows students and professors to interact spontaneously as they would in an on-campus classroom) and Online Learning (in that it allows students to access resources and to post comments and information 24/7). Absolutely nothing technological is preventing universities from offering shared programs which bring together faculty dream teams in virtually every field. It is likely that research centres will have to weigh in and play a role in determining what programs universities offer and who teach in them. Given escalating needs and costs in higher education, change can happen, and must happen.

Just presented a paper on the Graduate Seminar, Constructing a typology at the IDEAS conference in Calgary with my colleague and co-author Dr. Gale Parchoma. We are interviewing faculty who teach at the graduate level about their teaching practices. As well, we are examining their syllabi and observing them in the classroom. This data will culminate in a typology of seminar models, something missing from the literature.

Has been a while since I posted something here. Am currently working on a closing keynote I'll be giving at University of Ottawa on May 21st on Outreach Strategies in Higher Education. UofO is embracing Blended Learning in a big way over the next few years, converting a large number of their courses to a blended format. I'll be presenting both the pros and cons of BL.

Am currently sojourning in Morocco and thinking about basic concepts. Am thinking that educational technology is ultimately operational reification.

Rethinking how various university-level course delivery systems have evolved over the last few decades. I distinctly see a move from a dichotomy to a continuum, thanks to advances in ICT.

SPOCs vs. MOOCs.
http://www.universitybusiness.com/article/spocs-may-provide-what-moocs-can%E2%80%99t

SPOC VS MOOC (MOOC is shorthand for massive open online courses, while SPOC are small private online courses)

- See more at: http://blog.mslgroup.com/are-mooc-and-spoc-antidotes-to-nimby-and-nope/ .CqiFK2Lq.dpuf
“We actually have our own MOOC. It’s a huge online class with hundreds of students, but the demand of student need was such that we ended up breaking it into SPOCs. The reality we experienced is that students needed a lot of support like they do in a standard class,” she says. “The MOOC was an interesting experiment, but it was an expensive one. Although it’s free for the students, it isn’t for us, and we’re a state institution. We have to at least break even.”

Whether MOOCs can be as successful without providing the same level of learner support is still an open question. After MOOC mania subsides, it may be that SPOCs will emerge as the preferred model for specialized learning, taking the online approach to smaller, targeted—and revenue generating—classes.

http://www.slate.fr/story/78916/mooc-cours-internet-spoc
urant un an ou deux, les cours gratuits en ligne ont semblé être l’avenir tout tracé de l’enseignement supérieur. Pourquoi, s’étaient demandé plusieurs spécialistes influents de l’informatique, avoir des milliers de lycées et d’universités donnant tous le même cours à de petits groupes d’étudiants à travers le pays, lorsqu’il est possible de voir le même cours dispensé au monde entier par un seul enseignant particulièrement brillant via Internet? Dans un article de Wired paru en mars 2012 à ce propos, Sebastian Thrun, fondateur d’Udacity et spécialiste en intelligence artificielle de l’université de Stanford, prévoyait qu’il ne resterait plus dans dix ans qu’une dizaine d’institutions d’enseignement supérieur au monde. Et Udacity, estimait-il, pourrait en faire partie.

Toutefois, cette prédiction semble aujourd’hui grandement exagérée. Après une année durant laquelle presque toutes les grandes universités se sont lancées tête baissée dans les cours en ligne ouverts et massifs (Clom, ou Mooc en anglais pour massive open online courses), les réactions sont plus que mitigées. Et cela n’a rien d’étonnant: non seulement l’idée de vidéos disponibles gratuitement sur Internet pour remplacer les cours traditionnels porte atteinte aux principes mêmes de nombreux enseignants, mais elle fait aussi peser une menace directe sur leurs emplois.

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Et si ces cours complétaient les autres? SPOC + MOOC
Même si tout le monde est pour la réduction des frais universitaires, le remplacement de milliers de professeurs et de cours par une poignée de sites Internet peuplés de conférenciers situés à l’autre bout du pays ne peut être une solution. Toutefois, avant de jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain, il convient de se demander s’il n’y aurait pas un moyen pour que les cours en ligne puissent compléter les enseignements traditionnels au lieu de les remplacer.