Hello fellow educators, welcome to podcast number 89. We've been talking about blended learning which has come to mean, in the online educational world, at least, blending technological solutions into the classroom. For the last three week I have been discussing my interview in podcast number 86 and the concepts brought to us by Stephen Harris, the founder for the Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning and Principal of North Beaches Christian School in New South Wales, Australia.  I had the opportunity to visit his school earlier this year and found his application of technology in their campus program very inspiring. I would encourage everyone to visit the www.scil.nsw.edu.au .  Before we jump into Stephen's final points of blended learning I want to encourage you to listen to all of the podcast. I have included an interview with Nick Negroponte, published on one of my favourite podcasts, To the Best of our Knowledge. Negroponte is the visionary of the $100 Laptop project that wants to give 3rd world children access to computer based learning. This project has been underway now for a couple of years and has some very pertinent ideas for our discussion of blended learning. I think you will be blessed by this and encouraged by the way blended learning can transform much more than the schools themselves.

I want to say thank you to our campus school staff for your emails and participation in this discussion. Obviously this is hitting home with most you. I greatly appreciate the dialogue. I ask for your patience and persistence in this new vision of education. This direction, no rather this journey is going to take many years of discussion, experimentation, building development, etc. We are a long way from where we were 5 years ago and in the next 5 years we will be in a much different place than today. A very wise friend of mine, one our directors, Dianne Eccles used to tell me, "Greg, don't be so worried about the destination, enjoy the journey." I am learning how to take Dianne's advice. This is a journey we are on. It isn't going to happen overnight and most of the changes in curriculum, pedagogy and the classroom process will be gradual. I think solving some of our hardware issues are central to the discussion. How do we get ease of access into the cloud (the new metaphor used for the internet based working environment) will be essential to the process. Creating an facility and an environment where access into the cloud is ubiquitous will be essential to this transformation. The other significant piece will be the necessary professional development that will get us there. We want to take everyone in our community into this 21st century approach to education. Many of us have to grow and develop in our own technological skills before we can see the enormous possibilities. The story at the end of the Negroponte interview will inspire you.

How do move towards this "destination?"  The first step is to talk about it and then talk about it some more. Many of you may not remember but we started talking about the Heritage Christian Online School years before we ever started. It started to come together in 2003, a year and a half before we ever enrolled an HCOS student. We have been talking about the International Christian Online School and doing quality online ESL courses now for two and half years. We launched ICOS two weeks ago and are now beginning to sign up students. The first steps on the journey are always the visionary talks, trying to see the map long before we get there. Will it look like we imagine? In some respects, yes, but in many more ways we will be surprised by the multiple directions we have taken on the path. Please be patient and please stay engaged.

Stephen Harris's fifth factor is very appropriate for the context we are engaged in with both our Online School staff and our Campus School staff:

Factor #5 - A clear understanding of the role of staff in successful course delivery

''A web course without a teacher is like an empty classroom with a pile of handouts on the desk for the student's" Marianna Leikomaa and Hanna Torp, Tampere Polytechnic, Finland

The selection of staff for teaching within an online program is closely linked to student success. Experience would suggest that while all staff can be expected to successfully incorporate blended learning methodologies into their classes, only highly accomplished classroom teachers should be allocated to fully online courses in the virtual environment. Highly accomplished teachers are better placed to understand the pedagogical shift required to move their active dynamic real classroom into the virtual environment."

I fully agree with Marianna's quoted comment. The strength our online courses have been the presence of a teacher throughout the course. In a good asynchronous course all of the instructional content, assignments, multimedia are available to the student to work at their own pace. This does not replace the valuable role of the teacher in assessment, pacing, tutoring and structuring the course for the individual students needs. Our experience indicates the more contact a student has with their online teacher the more confident the student feels about the process. The quicker a student is able to receive meaningful feedback the better they are able to make adjustments in their learning. When a teacher gives thoughtful anecdotal comments and guiding suggestions the students are more apt to respond. You might be thinking that that is just good teaching and I would agree with you. But keep in mind that in an online class your relationship with the student has to be expressed through your interaction around your assessment and tutoring opportunities.

What I don't necessarily agree with Stephen here is his direction to use the "highly accomplished classroom teachers" for the online classrooms. With some notable exceptions, the more a teacher is committed to a classroom approach the less likely they are going to transition into the online world. We have grown because many of our online teachers have begun in this context of education from the start. The teachers at HCOS who have made the shift to online and have become the most "accomplished" here have had to shed much of their classroom approach to education. They keep different hours than the classroom teacher. They are not trying to move the group at the same pace through the curriculum. Instead of facing the classroom of students every day they have to manage their email and marking. They have to work in opportunities to tutor students. They are, in many cases, in far greater contact with parents who are supervising their children's work. They have to develop a different set of intuitive skills to see into the students work and home. The list goes on. As we try to blend the best of the classroom and the best of online I think we will need both sides to find ways to intersect their very different skill sets.

Factor 6: Sustained commitment to recurrent staff training

"The use of online content in both blended and distance-delivery modes requires a willingness among staff to engage in a significant and on-going level of professional development. Exemplar programs might include staff training delivered via online methodologies. Staff need to be aware that there will be an initial and significant additional preparation load when involved In specific online course delivery. This will be compensated in time by well-developed courses that need minimal adjusting from year to year."

Amen Stephen. Staff development has to be ongoing and reoccurring.  One of the directions that we want to begin is to create online courses for our teachers, training them in the technology and pedagogical shifts we are making. One of the solutions to our very large and spread out staff for HCOS, literally all over this vast Province, is to use Online classroom  meeting technology of Ellumniate Live to do our regional staff meetings. I don't think we will ever stop meeting face to face but if we are an online school that can educate at a distance then we should be able to master the skills of online communication for our meetings. We can include our campus school teachers in this as well. Instead of gathering for every meeting we could do some of our professional development with these methods. How about a half day professional development event where you work from your home computer. Just a thought.

Factor 7: Evidence of student suitability to the online environment prior to course commencement

"AII students will benefit from a well-organised visual environment. Students contemplating taking distanced mode online courses need to have a high individual level of resilience, diligence and commitment to independent learning, as well as a strong digital literacy. Some students are not suited to distance-mode online courses. Students need to take clear ownership of their learning and view active participation in the virtual class community as a significant part of any online course."

We have seen this in BC Online School, our cross enrolment program. This year we will enrol well over 2000 students but we interview every student and work hard to see if they are really suited for this environment. It is unfortunate but at our campus school we have assumed that any student could just take an online course to make up their work. We have often put our lower end academic students in online courses for remedial purposes. They can be successful but they have to be self motivated to do so. Experience has shown us that the stronger academic student is much more likely to succeed because she already has the study tools and ownership of her learning. As we begin this process of blending online to classroom we should look to our more academic courses to begin the process, Principles of Math verses Essentials, Chemistry verses the general Science and Tech course.

Factor 8: The strength of the online community surrounding a course

"Success into the online environment clearly requires a very visible class community. The time taken to induct students into the virtual classroom environment for a course, along with a recurrent focus on developing a distinct and positive class environment, would appear to significantly influence student learning outcomes and the retention rates of those studying fully online courses. Students need to feel secure, confident and not isolated within the online environment."

This is, of course the strength of the Campus School, community. Don't be fooled though to think that this does not exist in the online world as well. In fact this is the keen surprise that teachers discover when they start teaching for HCOS.  They become part of a larger more diverse community that connects in extremely meaningful ways with their students and other staff.

Factor 9: The technology and infrastructure used

"Teachers working in the virtual environment need to feel confident in the technical side of web-based learning. Online pedagogy requires a stable networked environment, where teachers have justifiable confidence in the ability of the technology to handle the requirements of online learning. The infrastructure needs to support a model that involves the teacher as the active developer of lesson specific content delivered via a student-centred portal within a stable learning management system."

It is here where we have succeed by developing a quality group of young techies to help our seasoned teachers. The average age of our tech department is 22. These young graduates of Heritage are the true digitals and they are leading the way into this 21st Century pedagogy.

As promised I wanted to save some time to include this interview from the US public radio show and podcast "To the Best of our Knowledge." The interview is with Nick Negroponte, Chairman Emeritus of MIT's Media Lab and the visionary for the One Laptop per Child association. This has some very interesting implications for blended learning and could be the way we reach the digital divide.

Audio Only

Please email us your comments and thoughts on today’s podcast. Also, if you would like us to mail you a free copy of my book or send you the download link for the audio version of, Discipling This Generation for a Digital World, simply send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and let us know what type of an educator you are, home schooler, classroom teacher, school administrator, or interested parent. Please let us know how you heard about the podcast and, of course, please include your mailing address. Thank you for listening and thank you for your commitment to discipleship-based Christian education.