Main Body
CHAPTER 6: Development of Blended Learning
Introduction
In this chapter, we will take a closer look at the development process for blended learning. Integrating an online component into your course introduces new technical and design considerations, from the initial design of your learning management system (LMS) to assessment strategies, and you will see how you can customize your course or programme to support deeper, more meaningful learning. The chapter also includes an overview of the important topic of open education and open educational resources.
The Role and Common Features of a Learning Management System
We provided a general description of LMSs in Chapter 5. An LMS is your central piece of technology to support the online version of your blended course and is a place to document all activities, including in-person activities, throughout the blended course. This section of Chapter 6 will provide more detail about the elements of an LMS and how they can be used in a blended course.
It is possible that part of your blended learning development will include the selection of an LMS for education delivery. The LMS is a software application that will help you do many things, including manage the course material layout, engage the students with each other, organism the assessments, provide student feedback, and plan the communication process among the students, between the student and the instructor, and between the student and the materials. In other words, an effective LMS will help you engage, facilitate, track and evaluate the many different types of teaching and learning elements involved in a blended learning course or programme.
Here are four principles to consider when matching your LMS to your blended learning course design.
- First, make sure you use the technology to support multiple learning strategies, but provide choice for students who may be more or less confident and more or less comfortable using technology in certain ways for their learning experience. Do your best not to dictate the active- ties, only to support the outcomes.
- Second, using the technology is part of the hidden curriculum and provides learning develop-ment not just about the content, but about learning and the technology itself. Make sure that you are prepared to support all the challenges that may arise as part of using the LMS.
- Third, use aspects of the LMS to provide the blend, that being the space between the in- person and online learning environments. In other words, you want to be consistently weaving links between the in-person activities and the online activities. The LMS can record and remind everyone about all of the activities that are taking place, as a way to provide a consistent web between the two learning environments.
- Finally, while the LMS will be home base, or the mother ship, don’t forget the potential to link to mobile and further cloud technologies to support what the LMS offers.
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