MOOC Offers Assistance on Designing Blended Learning Courses

The University of Central Florida (UCF) and Educause have re-launched a no-cost massive open online course (MOOC) that offers facilitated assistance to faculty members and instructional designers who want to develop blended courses.

BlendKit2017: Becoming a Blended Learning Designer, hosted on Instructure's Canvas Network, will be facilitated by Sue Bauer and Baiyun Chen, instructional designers at UCF’s Center for Distributed Learning. Throughout the five-week course, participants will explore key issues related to blended learning and best practices. They will also receive step-by-step guidance on developing design documents, creating content pages and other materials needed for a blended course.

The MOOC includes:

  • Practical step-by-step “how to” guides;
  • Assessment and critique on design work from course experts and peers;
  • Blogging and social networking opportunities; and
  • Weekly webinars with guest presenters.

BlendKit2017 runs Feb. 27 to May 22. The course is free, but students can choose to participate in the $89 certification track to have their portfolios reviewed. The track includes a certificate and digital badge from UCF and Educause.

The MOOC is the fifth iteration between Educause and UCF. The course was funded by a Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) grant in 2011, which leveraged UCF’s expertise to create BlendKit as a free, open resource for other higher education institutions.

To learn more about what BlendKit2017 entails, watch the video below.

About the Author

Sri Ravipati is Web producer for THE Journal and Campus Technology. She can be reached at [email protected].

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