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The Evolution of Digital Learning Systems Through Customization
7/23/2008
The Impact of Blended Delivery
Societal and economic needs have always been closely linked to educational changes. That is, preparing students for realistic life goals and employment success have challenged educators for many years. Conversely, however, those external changes have also imposed external control of educational goals and particular delivery design.
Distance education has been around for many years and has had some form of technology mediation as part of the process. From ink to type, from recorded audio to multimedia, from correspondence to Internet-delivered: Each of these has brought new designs of instruction and delivery, but all have been developed mainly as a result of student life changes and pressures within a changing society. The Internet, of course, has maximized learning flexibility and increased the potential for instructional design changes as well as delivery changes like no other technology before. Often, however, Internet-delivered and mediated courses can be among the most boring and ineffective for students.
The delivery of course content was the initial fascination with the Internet's capabilities to deliver education and training; however, it began to become apparent that the technology itself had a wider appeal--the capabilities of the Internet could transform the actual process of teaching and learning. Along with the delivery of content, the Internet could now be used as an instructional tool to mediate the learning process; maximize interaction, communication, and application for learning; and empower students through immediate production and visible innovation.
Therefore, the effect of the technology on the learning process itself meant that more instructors began to experiment with the technology to augment existing conventional face-to-face courses. This meant that students had a more blended experience partly online using Internet tools and partly face-to-face in more conventional settings. The result of this has been that increasing numbers of conventional courses are being supported, augmented, and expanded through the use of online tools, and, in fact, blended delivery is becoming the norm in course delivery at every level of schooling.
The result is that students and teachers benefit from two different learning environments and draw strength from each for different reasons. Further, while the delivery capability of the Internet has changed course format options and provided time and place flexibility, the instructional capabilities of the Internet have changed actual student learning and social "spaces" within courses. This has been partly owing to the technology itself and partly to how it has been used socially and instructionally in general. Therefore, as blended course delivery has become more regular, so have the combined delivery and instructional mediation using technology. The result has been richer and more collaborative learning environments.
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