Becoming+a+Blended+Learning+Designer+-Blog

**Blended** In what ways can blended learning courses be considered the “best of both worlds” (i.e., face-to-face and online)? What could make blended learning the “worst of both worlds?”

I am working at the vocational college in Finland and we have started to make some study material for students in open web environment. The idea has been quite the same as BlendKit has: open material for anyone interested in subject and then design courses with guidance and interaction and run them couple of times during the college year.

In Finland we have of course the concept blended learning, but for some reason we are not talking about it or using it very much. However most of the further education for example for teachers is carried out "in blended way": they include face-to-face meetings, interaction via computers and many kinds of development tasks. And of course there are eLearning courses which mostly consist online lectures and discussions and one way or another documented development tasks.

When we started in our college to plan web based eLearning material we began the discussion with our teachers about web based online learning courses.That was clearly a mistake, because almost all teachers thought that it is not possible to carry out, for some reason or another. Most of them thought that our students (mostly young, between 16-20 years) are not able to study whole courses independently, we would not be able to design high-quality courses and it is not possible to teach almost anything in eLearning courses. In our college we also emphasize guidance and support and teaching via computers would mean that we leave our students without these services.

It would have been better talk about designing blended learning courses, because in such a courses students can get best sides of face-to-face teaching and online instruction.

I think that face-to-face learning situations gives students more possibilities to interact with other students and the teacher more spontaneously compared to online meetings. In F2F -situations it is easier to build up a confidential atmosphere between students and that might help them to assist each in studies. For teachers it is easier to find out which students need more help an guidance and But it is also possible, that students experience bad sides of both methods.
 * Online instruction gives more possibilities to plan own studying depending other things in the life. It also gives more time to rehearse and revise videos or other material.