My First MOOC - #blendkit2015

This February, a colleague and I enrolled in the UCF/EDUCAUSE MOOC #blendkit2015 and as a part of the course, I have decided to share some of my learnings here on my blog.

This week we have been reading and learning about a few different ways of looking at designing and developing blended courses. Some of my initial impressions of this first chapter are: it is very complete and comprehensive in its approach to helping faculty and instructional designers understand and ponder blended learning (also known as hybrid or mixed-mode courses), the definition of blended courses is very similar to that of hybrid courses where I work at the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Vermont.

According to chapter one on the blended toolkit reader, "Blended courses (also known as hybrid or mixed-mode courses) are classes where a portion of the traditional face-to-face instruction is replaced by web-based online learning. "

I like to think of a blended course as not just taking advantage the best of both learning environments, but also the synergy between the two when they are aligned to work in a way that helps students to meet the course learning objectives.

There are some very helpful resources and templates available in this blendkit course. I am looking forward to connecting with others involved in the MOOC through the campus course interactions, diigo groups and blog posts (I think there is even a LinkedIn group). Lots to look through and learn about. Thanks to all of the folks who put this together especially EDUCAUSE for sharing the info on #blendkit2015.