Blended+Learning+2

WHAT is being Blended?
//(or what are the different components / ideas / strategies / aspects implied in the term "Blended Learning"?)// //What is being BLENDED in Teaching and Learning?//

**ROLE PLAY TASK**
In your case study group.. You will be given one of the learning approaches below. Your tasks is to.. 1. Identify the characteristics of the approach 2. Decide as a group one example of how this approach to be applied to your case study 3. Role play a situation where one of your group takes on the role of a senior staff Manager at your organization and one person takes on the role of the eLearning Case Study advocate. The conversation is about the advocate talking to the manager about the case study and WHY this approach is suitable. (the conversation should last for no longer than 3mins)

//Associative view – learning as activity// //Cognitive or Constructive view – learning as achieving understanding// //Situative view – learning as a social practice// //Refer to p.7 in the resource booklet// MANAGER How to do the case study - What method will you adopt? Studnets avtivity? Content structure? Levels of difficulty? What is the budget? Why use eLearning? Who is the audience? More effective? why? How long is the course? What might some of the challenges be? How long to develop? ADVOCOTE What does eLearning mean? In this context? Advantage? Theory approach? In the case study where is there S-S, S-C, S-T interaction? What will happen before, during and after class? What are the challenges? Content? What is the trend or new approach?

A recent article by Jacob Vakkayil in the academic journal //Learning Inquiry// (Vol. 2, 2008, pp. 13-27) is a good review of the various metaphors that surround the concept of learning. Each metaphor gives us some insight, and taken together they show what a complex concept learning really is. No one metaphor is “correct”, but each represents a different understanding. This makes subscribing to only one or a limited set of these metaphors a dangerous practice. As Lakoff and Johnson outlined in their book //Metaphors We Live By//, much of our understanding and communications are founded on base metaphors that are combined to achieve complex abstract concepts. Each metaphor has implications as to how we view knowledge and the processes of teaching. Jacob Vakkayil is oriented towards organizational learning in this article, so his examples are particularly relevant to people in corporate training. The eight metaphors that he lists (with my comments) are:
 * OVERVIEW of LEARNING METAPHORS**
 * Learning as transfer – implications: knowledge is portable stuff that can be passed around and the learner is a container
 * Learning as corrective change – implications: observable behaviors can be changed and the instructor needs to have objectives in terms of the desired end behaviors from the learner
 * Learning as computing – implications: the mind is a computer that processes large quantities of data and the learning is a process of reprogramming mental structures, scripts and algorithms
 * Learning as building connections – implications: the human brain is like a neural network where learning is the strengthening or weakening of pathways of neurons
 * Learning as self-organization – implications: humans are self-organizing adaptive systems that continuously produces its own components and organization in the context of being embodied, and embedded in a culture and history. Learning is the emergence of new knowledge based on all these contextual factors
 * Learning as propogation – implications: cultural ideas (”memes”) are transmitted through humans who act as hosts and transmitters of these ideas. Humans are robots under the evolutionary influence of both genes and memes.
 * Learning as coordination – implications: knowledge is distributed and doesn’t reside within any individual. It is partially held by each learner, and is found in collective artifacts made through collaboration
 * Learning as participation – implications: learning is also distributed, but is found in the social interaction among individual learners. Learning is always associated with a community, and happens through joint action

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