Jun

Blended Learning Webinar Week

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Event description

Description

EADTU is organising the Blended Learning Webinar Week from 25-27 June.

The concept of blended learning itself is far from clear-cut. The literature spans various definitions and meanings, e.g. ”the thoughtful integration of conventional and digital methods of teaching and learning” (Graham, et al., 2013). It is agreed that the digital is not a supplement and does not simply replicate aspects of the conventional – each should enhance the other. Blended learning combines conventional and digital methods to achieve an “optimal exploitation of ICT and internet” integrated with the conventional technologies of physical material, and co-presence in space and time. The value of blending the two is that digital methods offer much greater personalization, flexibility, inclusiveness and efficiency than conventional methods can, but they have to be used appropriately (Laurillard, 2015).

This matters, because universities face challenges as keeping quality with large student numbers and lower budgets per learner, supporting study progress and success and meeting the needs of part-time students. Innovation by blended learning will lead to quality enhancement of the learning experience, personalization, accessibility, flexibility and inclusion. Furthermore blended learning is suitable for teaching large groups synchronously and asynchronously; constituting small learning groups; capitalizing on the worldwide connection with research; multi-campus education and blended mobility, etc.

Hence, blended learning plays a role in solving problems teachers and leaders face. Also, they enrich institutional concepts on learning (e.g. the “guided independent learning” or “active learning” models), as well as institutional policies for teaching and learning. Furthermore, it can contribute to solutions related to scalability and cost-effectiveness in higher education.

In this webinar week we will explore good practices and new developments in the field of blended learning.

Chair of the webinar week and EMPOWER member: Angeles Sánchez-Elvira Paniagua, IUED Director, UNED, and Chair of EMPOWER Student Support field, Spain

Programme:

Tuesday 25 June 2019 [14:00 - 15:30 CEST]: Looking deeper into Blended Learning

Steve Wheeler, Plymouth University, UK

In The Mix
Blended. It used to refer to something you did in the kitchen. With a machine. It saved you having to mix ingredients with your hands or a utensil. It took away a lot of the effort. Hopefully, the end result was edible. Now blended has come to mean something else, at least in the education domain. But what exactly do we mean when we talk about blended learning?

Once, blended learning was an easy concept to understand. It described the difference between traditional and distance education. Face-to-face learning experiences were mixed with remote learning, usually mediated through some kind of technology. First it was paper based, and then followed a rapid evolution of technology, so that now the ‘ distance' side of blended learning comes in many shades and hues. The most common form of blended learning today is where you spend some time in the classroom, but the majority of your time studying online. Sams and Bergman call it the flipped classroom. It's a form of blended learning, but it’s not new. Blended learning is taking on a number of other connotations, because thanks to the advent of the digital device, there are now many more modes of learning. Consider for example the blend between mobile and tethered learning experiences. You can be mobile and take your learning beyond the classroom, but you can be away from the classroom and still be tethered to your technology. In this session I will explore issues around these developments, and some of the alternative possibilities for what we now call 'blended learning'.

Bio: Steve Wheeler is a Learning Innovations Consultant and has worked with a number of high-profile organizations to support innovation, change and digital learning. Prior to this, he was an Associate Professor of Learning Technologies at the Plymouth Institute of Education at the University of Plymouth and a manager in the National Health Service. He regularly keynotes at learning events around the world and has written extensively on the topic of technology supported education and learning.

Wiebe Dijkstra, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands

Universities face challenges as keeping quality with large student numbers and lower budgets per learner, supporting study progress and success and meeting the needs of part-time students. Innovation by blended education will lead to quality enhancement of the learning experience, personalization, accessibility, flexibility and inclusion. Furthermore blended education is suitable for teaching large groups synchronously and asynchronously; constituting small learning groups; capitalizing on the worldwide connection with research; multi-campus education and blended mobility, etc.

Blended education combines conventional and digital methods to achieve an “optimal exploitation of ICT and internet” integrated with the conventional technologies of physical material, and co-presence in space and time. The value of blending the two is that digital methods offer much greater personalization, flexibility, inclusiveness and efficiency than conventional methods can, but they have to be used appropriately (Laurillard, 2015). The concept of blended learning itself is far from clear-cut. The literature spans various definitions and meanings, e.g. ”the thoughtful integration of conventional and digital methods of teaching and learning” (Graham, et al., 2013). It is agreed that the digital is not a supplement and does not simply replicate aspects of the conventional – each should enhance the other.

The EMBED project is about introducing innovation in higher education by the implementation of blended learning (b-learning) in a strategic partnership and beyond. The partnership consists of frontrunner universities in b-learning European wide for full expert representation. They will create a reference model for developing and implementing blended learning, embracing all levels of an institution: the design of the blended course, organisational aspects such as staff support and training, and institutional leadership, developing policies and strategies making the institution continuously innovative.

It is a maturity model with criteria and instruments to assess the degree of maturity of b-learning and innovation.

Wednesday 26 June 2019 [14:00 - 15:30 CEST]: Good practices in Blended Learning

Luis Fernández, UNED, Spain

Proposal for a strategic refocusing in UNED Local Centers
The success of UNED since 1972 can be due to some classic factors of open universities (e.g. change from an elite to a massive system of high-quality services, innovation in learning and teaching, flexible practice centred on the student, use of new technologies or admission of non-traditional students), but it has also been cemented in other factors as its blended-learning model with a large physical territorial structure: 61 Local Centres and 120 classrooms within the Spanish State, besides 13 Centres in different countries of the world, mainly in Europe, North and South America and Africa, whose funding depends, in addition to those of the university itself, on the public or private initiative and local or regional administrations that become part of its governing board and make strategic decisions, in unequal and variable proportions, plus an academic structure at its headquarters by the Ministry of Education.

Traditional face-to-face tutoring is progressively decreasing due to the current support that all our students receive by online means; in this sense, our blended-learning model requires to be updated according to the evolution and development of society itself and the availability of advanced learning methodologies supported by technologies (such as the incorporation of artificial intelligence). Local centres are urged, thus, to develop new academic services giving answer to the demands and challenges of higher education in the XXI century. In this context, I will explain the possibilities for a recalibration of the role of UNED Local Centres, suggesting some relevant developments more focused on life-long learning possibilities, such as higher support to entrepreneurship,employment, specialisation, research and transference; and other contributions such as local support to open and online programs under a GLOCAL approach, taking advantage of our privilege connection with the immediate environment.

Bio: Chairman Quality Committee of Centers of the UNED. Director of the Chair of Quality “Ciudad de Tudela”. Director of UNED Tudela

Raúl Santiago, University of La Rioja, Spain

Active learning and blended & flipped models: a selection of tools to improve feedback in virtual and face-to-face spaces
Flipped learning and Blended learning models are often used with the same meaning, but there are some differences, we could say that “all flipped is blended but not all blended is flipped”, we will start by clarifying some misunderstandings and wrong conceptions about both learning strategies. Once we have done this, we will analyse some tools with a huge potential to improve feedback with students both in the virtual and face-to face spaces, Specifically we will pay special attention to features as “heat maps”, “gamification possibilities and “multimedia options”.

Bio: PhD in Pedagogy. He is associate professor in the Department of Didactics and School Organization at the University of La Rioja. He has been Director of the Multimedia Resources Area of the UR Foundation and Director of the Higher Language Center of the Public University of Navarra. He has participated as an advisor in national and European projects on ICT applications in education.

Elif Toprak and Mehmet Firat, Anadolu University, Turkey

Why Diversity Matter in ODL? Case of Anadolu University
Learner demographics have a wide range of differences in massive education systems. Disadvantaged groups, digital skills groups, different socio-economic levels, different learning styles are some examples of these differences. Thus, ODL needs to be accessible for all learner groups with diversity in learning environments, learning materials, media types, student support services, blended learning opportunities and assessment types. ANADOLU University Open Education System as a Mega University aims to provide this diversity to 1.2 million students from 36 countries.

Bio: Dr. Elif TOPRAK is an Associate Professor at the Open Education Faculty at Anadolu University, Turkey. Dr. Toprak has BSc, MSc, PhD degrees in the discipline of International Relations. Since 2005 she has joined the Department of Distance Education and contributed to international and national ODL research projects and international activities of the institution. She acted as Vice Dean between 2008-2011. Dr. Toprak has scholarly publications on internationalization of distance education, ethics in e-Learning and cultural diversity. Her research interests are international regimes, communication theories, transnational higher education and quality in ODL.

Dr. Mehmet FIRAT is Associate Professor at Anadolu University Open Education Faculty. His academic interests are open and distance learning, educational technologies, e-learning, learning analytics and mixed method research. Website: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mehmet_Firat

José Bidarra, Universidade Aberta, Portugal

Digital Media Arts in Open and Distance Education
This presentation introduces a PhD programme on Digital Media Arts and explains how we explore expressiveness to its maximum extent through computer graphics, digital sound and music, computer vision, digital storytelling, virtual reality, amongst other technologies, in the context of Open and Distance Education. Through a blended learning approach students explore techniques of artistic expression in order to generate new media applications, products, narratives, games and aesthetic experiences in such areas as the cultural industries, education and entertainment.

Bio: José Bidarra has a PhD in Educational Communications by Universidade Aberta (the Portuguese Open University), where he is currently Professor with Habilitation in the Department of Science and Technology. For many years he was head of the Informatics, Physics and Technology Section (SIFT) and has been coordinator of several master degree programs. He is also co-author of the virtual pedagogical model used at Universidade Aberta.

His current research interests focus mainly on the application of multimedia and digital media in distance education, including ebooks, games and simulations. Many of his master and doctorate students are developing new methodologies to engage learners in valuable experiences with digital media. Most of the research is conducted at Universidade Aberta and at CIAC (Center for the Arts and Communication Research, University of Algarve); other research includes an Honorary Fellowship at the Games, Learning, and Society research unit, University of Wisconsin – Madison (USA), and frequent collaborations with European universities and networks: TU Graz, OU-NL, OU-UK, EADTU, EMPOWER.