(G)old Blend

It tickles and frustrates me in equal measure when I hear people say that they “…don’t believe in blended learning.” They seem to think it is something new – the latest fad in learning. I respond by explaining that blended learning is how they have always learnt, indeed how we humans have always learnt – from a variety of learning interventions. For example learning to drive a car involves studying a book, guided practice, instruction, discussion, assessment and so on.

I am equally amused when I hear that people “…don’t believe that technology can be used to teach” and wonder if these same people would have been equally sceptical of the written word, or indeed printed books.

I come across these attitudes quite regularly from very intelligent people, so why do they have this view? I suspect it is down to the quality of what they’ve seen so far, perhaps not seeing the wider context of how the technology is being used, having strong personal preferences against technology in general or a combination of these factors.

What I always stress is that we’re not doing anything new. We’ve just added a few more delivery methods to the blend. That’s all. It’s nothing to be threatened or intimidated by. We just have more methods at our disposal, which can only be a good thing.