Here - EnglishAgenda - British Council

ConclusionA blended training course is one where face-to-face and online components areblended to deliver uniform opportunity in a training provision. Our course attempts tocater to a range of participants’ learning styles and preferences; it provides interactionbetween teachers following a traditional blending of face-to-face and online interactionwith teachers solely online from a range of teaching contexts and cultures negotiatingthe course simultaneously.What have we learned about blended learning? The online elements of our coursesenable us to offer a far wider range of learning options, but simultaneously require afar more complex system of help, guidance and support. Storage, flexibility and accessmean more can be presented and learning pathways can be better individualised,but that means more work not less for us as course providers. ‘Basing educationupon personal experience may mean more multiplied and more intimate contactsbetween the mature and the immature than ever existed in the traditional school, andconsequently more, rather than less, guidance by others’ Dewey (1998: 8). Guidancemay include guidance as to how the course works, supplementing study skills/timemanagement and help with some digital literacies. Both participants and tutors needsupport in using various facets of the technologies and as the Open University haveshown, need is not age related (Jones et al., 2010). To be convincing online materialhas to be updated regularly and links have to be checked thoroughly before eachcourse and there needs to be a fast response to changes on the web that impact onaccess to resources. There is no such thing as a ‘finished’ course. The more we learn,the more we are aware of what more we need to do.108 | Creating a blended Delta Module One