Sloaning to the Blended World

I just returned from the Sloan-C Blended Learning Workshop in Chicago. This was my first Sloan/Blended Learning-dedicated event. It turns out the number of blended learning pioneers is smaller than I thought, much smaller, with only about 150 participants. Who are the leaders? Well, the UCF gang was there: Joel Hartman and Charles Dziuban (the data wizard). Also notable is the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: Bob Kaleta. Between these two organization, you have everything you ever wanted to know about blended learning and then some.

The surprise here was how many blended learning "newbies" are actually out there. Sloan has a vast collection of blended learning resources, including data, best practices, models, contacts, etc. The workshop had two tracks: one for foundational knowledge and another for those who are interested in expanding their current initiatives.

The takeaways..... 1) figure out how you're going to collect data on everything you do--this will help tremendously as your program matures and you need to justify its existence (trust me on this one); 2) don't reinvent the wheel--even though this area is relatively new, a few leaders and leading organizations can really help get you started and avoid mistakes; 3) this is a hugely exciting field that brings together many exciting educational movements: instructional technology, course redesign, and hybrid education.

Well, it's exciting for some of us anyway :)