Blended Learning

“Blended learning uses the tools of the provincial learning management system (LMS) to teach and support learning in a face-to-face class.”    
                                    -  Ontario Ministry of Education

In our board, blending learning is becoming much more common.  We are using the platform D2L to give students the blended learning experience.  As well, many teachers are using a variety of other online programs. 

This program might be a little complex for primary users.  They might want to try something like Kidblog.  Students will not need to memorize their users names, classmates are easier to find and it is less cluttered and ad-free.

I found a great example of using Kidblog in the primary divisions.  This teacher creates four different blogs on different experiments going on in the classroom.  Each day they sit down as teams and take pictures, upload them and add their observations of their experiment to the blog.  This is a great way for students to work together and share their ideas and observations. 

This enhances the teaching of this concept by making it more engaging and it also allows student to see the observations of others.  Depending on how this is set up, students will need to collaborate in their teams and work together to capture the images, select the image and make observations as a group..

Here is a link to her lesson: http://www.teachingace.com/kidblog/

In the junior division, students could use Socrative to take a quiz or a test.  This online tool replaces the need for clickers and gives the students and the teacher immediate feedback and results.  Students can work from any handheld device, computers or laptops. An example of how to use this effectively would be to give an entrance quiz/diagnostic to see what students already know and what they need to know.  Within minutes, the teacher would know strengths and weaknesses and could start to build an understanding of where the challenges may be.

This enhances the teaching because it gives the teacher and the class immediate feedback.  As well, students will be more motivated to perform due to the fact they will be allowed to use these technology to participate.

In the intermediate grades, students could use the platform D2L or another blended learning platform to submit their assignments.  For instance, I just collected my students class logos completed in Photoshop through the D2L dropbox.  The advantage of this is that I can give feedback (typed or verbal) that will go right back to them.  This allows me to be more detailed and allows students to listen or read the feedback more than once.  Another advantage is that they can submit their assignment from anywhere and receive their feedback as soon as it is posted. 

Blended learning is a great teaching style to support special needs learners, ELL learners and students with special needs.  These students will be able to use other web tools and apps to help support them through the process.  For instance, if they are blogging they will have access to programs such as Work Q that can predict, edit and read their text back to them to help them transfer their ideas effectively on line.  Another important aspect for these students is that they access to their work and feedback all of the time.  If they want to review their feedback, they can do so as many times as they need to with the online tools.  As well, blended learner will help organize those students who struggle in this dimension.  Students won’t need to worry so much about losing their work and forgetting it at home.  They will have access to it whenever they need to.   

Overall, blended learning is a great tool and it continues to grow.  By 2019, it is said the 50% of all high school courses will be delivered online (Clayton Christensen).