I'm taking a blended learning MOOC.


As I did the reading I developed an appreciation for how Canvas, and other educators including those at the University of California Irvine, define blended learning.  As I processed their writing, I visualized a continuum with traditional face-to-face instruction on the left and on the right was pure virtual where you never see your instructor, but the materials and assignments are available online and you learn by following instructions and working at your own pace.  On that continuum, the roles and responsibilities and expectations changed, different strengths and weaknesses of the learning modes bounced around in my head.


Then something occurred to me.


I think that we have always been doing some form of blended learning we just didn't think of it that way because we didn't have computer platforms that told us we were learning without the physical presence of our instructors.


Back in the day, we did blended learning but we didn't have computers we had text books and spiral notebooks.  In law school, we had to read the assigned chapters before class and arrive prepared to discuss--and lead a discussion, if we were unfortunate enough to be called on that day.  As an engineer I attended lectures and went home to solve problems that were in my book and I read the book to understand how to form the equations and model the physics with math.  If we can mentally discount the significance of a computer screen, and agree that the essence of the blended learning is that we are using tools: books, computers, papers, reading assignments, lab experiments, and other tools outside the direct supervision of a live instructor, I think we can agree we've been blended learners since kindergarten.


Whether anyone agrees with me or not, I think it still remains an interesting exercise to contemplate the new ways technology is enabling us to deliver training and education.  Whether or not we call it blended learning and discuss it as something different than we've been doing all along, the exercise of deliberately engineering the delivery of information and experience to the student, via different platforms is a worthy endeavor.  Staying mindful of the diversity of student learning capacities, the means that the information can be delivered and engineering the social experience during the learning--including offering individual students meaningful choices about how they experience the learning, all seem to be productive ideas.