Creating a "Blended Learning Environment"

Blended Learning is not new and is the approach many Colleges’ are adopting as it clearly has significant benefits. However, there is no one size fits all and it takes time to find the right solution to fit each course.

The concept is easy, take a lesson that you would normally teach in the traditional way and use technology to empower students to independently work through activities via an online mechanism, usually the VLE. We’ve all seen how dull and uninspiring VLE’s can be and they are not “Blended Learning Environments” but an online filing cabinet with added functionality to allow students to upload assignments.

The VLE has numerous tools that educators don’t always tap into. Take the Lesson module in Moodle, a flexible framework to create amazing online lessons, a tool I have yet to see used in practice.

But what if we take the simple concepts and mix a “web designer” with an educator?

I’ve been working with staff using Moodle and Moodleroom’s Snap theme to look at how adding some simple style changes can transform a standard linear list into a structured online lesson mainly using the Label resource.

I used the Snap theme as it completely changed the way Moodle looks and works, thus giving the impression it is a new system but in fact functionally it hasn't changed. Then working a little bit of CSS magic changed the activities to not display what type of activity it is.

Let’s take a questionnaire for example, the traditional way of using a questionnaire is ask some questions and get some feedback. However, if we take the word “questionnaire” out of the equation it becomes an online learning activity.

We could now add a video clip into the questionnaire at the top and ask students to watch it. Then using essay boxes now ask them to comment or write their thoughts on the clip below. Staff can then read the comments and mark accordingly or better allow students to refer back to their notes when writing up an assignment.

But, won’t that just make each course just full of “online learning activities” in a list?

Yes - but that’s where the next step comes in. Take the “Label” resource, a completely flexible and ultimately your best friend tool that can completely change your “Blended Learning Environment”.

I did some research on online courses to see how they are structured. I stumbled across Kineo’s My Essentials Plus and really liked the way they were laid out. However, without having a big design team and huge amounts of time to create them I wouldn't have been able to replicate that across the College.

So instead I took simple concepts from them such as colourful background images, enlargement or movement on hover and BIG titles/headings. All of which could be applied with some simple CSS and tiny bits of HTML. Bits of HTML that can be easily populated in a course template already.

Now look how different that looks to our traditional linear VLE’s. The solution isn’t perfect and overtime will evolve just like technology does, but I just wanted to give a bit of food for thought on it might not be the platform that students don’t engage with but the design.