Reflection on Blended Learning (Danny Wittenborn)

I am sorry to say that I did not understand a lot of things because of the technological problems and my limited cognitive abilities to understand the online presentation.

My technological problems were follwoing:
1. I could not move the curser on the screen to say "I have a question." So, I needed Dr. Schaffer's help. While he was helping me, I could not lieten to the introduction part of the presentation. (But in normal communicative circumstances, I could have still catched up later. However, in this particular class, I was not able to. The reasons are 2.)
2. There are four channels of communication in front of me at the same time.
(1) Powerpoint
(2) Chat
(3) Sound
(4) Image of the presenter
Especially the simultaneous presentation of (1) and (2), which were conveying separate discourses, are cognitively really demanding. And the powerpoint slides were pretty wordy. I indicated "Please slow down" in Chat but it was not very slowed down. (But Dan was kind enough to recap the general picture of the program after the request.)

It was not my first time to use Macromedia Breeze. Previously, the presenters were instructional technologist. Their presentations were more understandable. I think the big difference was the speed of delivery and constant interactions between the students and the teacher.

As for his study of blended learning, I thought Nuray's question was good. She asked which was the focus of the study? Either the method of delivery of instruction or the content area of PLM education? Dan's answer was both. I think what I mean here is that I was not very sure about the research design of the study. Probably because he wanted to measure the impact of the two independent variables, I was not sure what he was trying to find out during the presentation. (But Nuray helped me with her question.) Also, there was no comparison group. Although the post test showed a good improvement from the pre test, I was not sure what independent variable was causing the improvement. I was not sure that the improvement was caused by the effect of one of the independent variables, any other confounding variables (or just the practice effect).

I was also wondering what field of study this research was conducted in? Is this study valuable in Technology (since Dan is in the school of Technology) or Education? There was no literature review during the presentation. I was not sure why this study was important in what field. I was not sure what contribution this study was making to the field. I think there are a lot of studies that showed positive effects of blended learning, and the effects are larger than in somc comparable traditional learning environments (as Dr. Schaffer was explaining at the end of the class). Because I was there in the class as a student in Ed Tech, I should have asked questions regarding the "scope" and "contribution to the field" questions up front in the beginning of the class.

Shigetake