Blending Learning as a Service #1

There could be two outlooks for "as a service" paradigm for blending learning:

• the perspective
• the offering

This post is in terms of the perspective.

The concept of service means the teacher looks at the appropriate blend that achieves the goals of enhancing knowledge of the student and purpose of the pedagogy within the ambit of the time given.

Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase (Turban et al 2002.)

The learner of the 21st century has changed tremendously and we've got to understand in learning terms how we will like Le_Chatelier's_Principle shift to offer education in a way that retains its standard, integrity and achieves the aim of training quality students.

Understanding Blended Learning

Blended Learning is a learner-centric shift. This definition fits into a service perspective:

The importance of a blended approach to learning is that it ensures the widest possible impact of a learning experience and thus ensures...that the organization optimizes productivity and delivers value to its customers (Julian and Boone 2001)

Note the words: impact of experience, productivity optimization and value delivery for customers.

The above is a true perception to the blended learning delivery. Blending learning is not merely the use of technology but about satisfying the yearning of the learner both expressed and unexpressed.

Consider a walk into the restaurant, it is the function of the waiter to reveal to the customer the several combinations and blend of cuisine that are available and based on the order given deliver an exquisite service.

Blending learning definitely like service has the student at the heart of the production.

The Intelligent learning system should reason about a learner's knowledge, monitor progress and adapt the teaching strategy to individual's learning pattern (Woolf, 1987)

So the question of why is shifting from technology as a means to change the delivery method to technology as a means to enhance learning. #BlendkitReader

An understanding of the use of a blend is conveyed in the findings of B.P. Woolf 2008 that one-on-one tutor yields over 70% of retention for student. This is not visible in a school setting but blending helps out in increasing the capability of the program deployed to better performance of the average student even in a large class setting.

The background of our service lies in the theories that has been well postulated and of course a blend of theories (Carman, 2005)

I particularly like the Bloom's Taxonomy and the Dale's Cone. When we develop under the auspices of those theories then we will serve continually a good blend to our customers and the result will be obvious.

References

Blendkit Reader http://blended.online.ucf.edu/blendkit-course-blendkit-reader-chapter-1/

Carman, J. M. (2005). Blended Learning Design: Five Key Ingredients. retrieved on November 1, 2012 from http://www.agilantlearning.com/pdf/Blended%20Learning%20Design.pdf 

Turban, Efraim (2002). Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective. Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-185461-5.

Julian, E.H. & Boone, C. (2001). Blended Learning Solutions: Improving the Way Companies Manage Intellectual Capital: An IDC White Paper. Retrieved from http://suned.sun.com/US/images/final_IDC_SES_6_22_01.pdf

Woolf, B. P. (1987), Representing complex knowledge in an intelligent machine tutor. Computational Intelligence, 3: 45–55. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8640.1987.tb00173.x

Woolf, B. P. (2009). Building Intelligent Interactive Tutors: Student-centered Strategies for revolutionizing e-learning. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2009.