GoogleTranslate Service


Smoothies

June 14th, 2007 by Graham Attwell

More on last weeks B-learning project meeting.

I invited Tony Toole from the University of Glamorgan to speak at the meeting. The CELT centre at the university is doing some interesting work which deserves a bigger audience. I’ve never been particularly keen on the term blended learning. On the one hand it seems to state the obvious, on the other hand it is difficult to know what it means. The CELT website itself says: “The phrase ‘blended learning’ can mean many different things to different people. Indeed the definitional complexities take up lots of pages of academic reflection. Phrases like ‘e-learning’, ‘online learning’ and ‘technology enhanced education’ are also equally open to a range of interpretations.”

However, I can see the attraction of the term in allowing a focus on pedagogic approaches to the use of technology enhanced learning. The CELT web site goes on to say: “At Glamorgan we have adopted a definition of blended learning which is designed to locate the development of these activities within the wider University agenda of enhancing learning and teaching. We would argue that Blended Learning involves:

The thoughtful integration of face-to-face classroom (spontaneous verbal discourse) and Internet based (reflective text-based discourse) learning opportunities. It is not an add-on to a classroom lecture nor an online course; it is a fundamental redesign. It allows for an optimal (re)design approach to enhance and extend learning by rethinking and restructuring learning and teaching to create blended learning (Cf. Vaughan and Garrison 2005).”

CELT has produced an excellent handbook on blended learning – called ‘Smoothies’. It is available for free download from the web site and is well worth a look. I particularly like the practical approach and the provision of templates both for reflection and to develop additional resources for the web site.

Please follow and like us:

Comments are closed.

  • Search Pontydysgu.org

    Social Media




    News Bites

    Cyborg patented?

    Forbes reports that Microsoft has obtained a patent for a “conversational chatbot of a specific person” created from images, recordings, participation in social networks, emails, letters, etc., coupled with the possible generation of a 2D or 3D model of the person.

    Please follow and like us:


    Racial bias in algorithms

    From the UK Open Data Institute’s Week in Data newsletter

    This week, Twitter apologised for racial bias within its image-cropping algorithm. The feature is designed to automatically crop images to highlight focal points – including faces. But, Twitter users discovered that, in practice, white faces were focused on, and black faces were cropped out. And, Twitter isn’t the only platform struggling with its algorithm – YouTube has also announced plans to bring back higher levels of human moderation for removing content, after its AI-centred approach resulted in over-censorship, with videos being removed at far higher rates than with human moderators.

    Please follow and like us:


    Gap between rich and poor university students widest for 12 years

    Via The Canary.

    The gap between poor students and their more affluent peers attending university has widened to its largest point for 12 years, according to data published by the Department for Education (DfE).

    Better-off pupils are significantly more likely to go to university than their more disadvantaged peers. And the gap between the two groups – 18.8 percentage points – is the widest it’s been since 2006/07.

    The latest statistics show that 26.3% of pupils eligible for FSMs went on to university in 2018/19, compared with 45.1% of those who did not receive free meals. Only 12.7% of white British males who were eligible for FSMs went to university by the age of 19. The progression rate has fallen slightly for the first time since 2011/12, according to the DfE analysis.

    Please follow and like us:


    Quality Training

    From Raconteur. A recent report by global learning consultancy Kineo examined the learning intentions of 8,000 employees across 13 different industries. It found a huge gap between the quality of training offered and the needs of employees. Of those surveyed, 85 per cent said they , with only 16 per cent of employees finding the learning programmes offered by their employers effective.

    Please follow and like us:


    Other Pontydysgu Spaces

    • Pontydysgu on the Web

      pbwiki
      Our Wikispace for teaching and learning
      Sounds of the Bazaar Radio LIVE
      Join our Sounds of the Bazaar Facebook goup. Just click on the logo above.

      We will be at Online Educa Berlin 2015. See the info above. The stream URL to play in your application is Stream URL or go to our new stream webpage here SoB Stream Page.

      Please follow and like us:
  • Twitter

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Meta

  • Categories