{"id":24,"date":"2013-11-16T18:50:46","date_gmt":"2013-11-16T18:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/bradbohte\/?p=24"},"modified":"2013-11-23T16:00:50","modified_gmt":"2013-11-23T16:00:50","slug":"in-defense-of-blended-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/bradbohte\/2013\/11\/16\/in-defense-of-blended-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Blended Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Taking my previous post into consideration I thought it would be good to turn the tables back in favour of Blended Learning.\u00a0 According to Research Data Centres of Canada (an interesting report on the digital divide in Canadian schools and homes \u00a0from 2003 \u2013 it\u2019s a bit dated <a href=\"http:\/\/www.publications.gc.ca\/Collection\/Statcan\/81-597-X\/81-597-XIE.pdf\">http:\/\/www.publications.gc.ca\/Collection\/Statcan\/81-597-X\/81-597-XIE.pdf<\/a>) almost 100 \u00a0percent of students use some form of digital media.<\/p>\n<p>The obvious point to be made is that our students need to be able to learn with the tools that people use nowadays.\u00a0 As for the Scientific American article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article.cfm?id=reading-paper-screens&page=2\">http:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article.cfm?id=reading-paper-screens&page=2<\/a> in my last post that stated reading from books to be more conducive to retaining content it leads me to believe that we need to pick and choose the media we use in class not based on convenience, wow factor or popularity.<\/p>\n<p>A case in point: in a recent Cohort21 Google hangout <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=O3xQt6clFmY\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=O3xQt6clFmY<\/a> there were some questions asked on how Twitter could be used for student learning.\u00a0 Some obvious points were raised about student Twitter tags and content of the tweets.\u00a0 Assuming that we are not choosing Twitter because it\u2019s convenient (most everyone has easy access through cell phones and of course online), the wow factor (comments are immediate) or its popularity (over 500,000,000 reported users <a href=\"http:\/\/www.statisticbrain.com\/twitter-statistics\/\">http:\/\/www.statisticbrain.com\/twitter-statistics\/<\/a>) then we would want to use Twitter to help our students learn how to communicate articulately and succinctly all while maintaining digital responsibility.\u00a0 See fellow Cohort21 educator Alan MacInnis\u2019 post for another idea on using Twitter\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/alanmacinnis\/2013\/11\/16\/to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet\/\">http:\/\/cohort21.com\/alanmacinnis\/2013\/11\/16\/to-tweet-or-not-to-tweet\/<\/a>\u00a0.<\/p>\n<p>There are lots of opportunities for learning these skills but by no means are they the only skills to learn or the skills that students need to focus on every lesson.\u00a0 This is where blending comes in.\u00a0 And it is an educator\u2019s job to make sure the ratio of digital to analog learning environments benefits our students\u2019 development.<\/p>\n<p>Therein lays the simple answer.\u00a0 It is neither one nor the other but the blending of both books, poster making, writing by hand and the use of digital media online, word processors and in applications.\u00a0 I would love to see more recorded on the ratio of blending and which methods are chosen for what reasons and how our students\u2019 performance was either enhanced or inhibited.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very exciting time to be in education!\u00a0 with lots more to come . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taking my previous post into consideration I thought it would be good to turn the tables back in favour of Blended Learning.\u00a0 According to Research Data Centres of Canada (an interesting report on the digital divide in Canadian schools and homes \u00a0from 2003 \u2013 it\u2019s a bit dated http:\/\/www.publications.gc.ca\/Collection\/Statcan\/81-597-X\/81-597-XIE.pdf) almost 100 \u00a0percent of students use &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/bradbohte\/2013\/11\/16\/in-defense-of-blended-learning\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;In Defense of Blended Learning&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blended-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/bradbohte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/bradbohte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/bradbohte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/bradbohte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/bradbohte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/bradbohte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/bradbohte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/bradbohte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/bradbohte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}