Week #11 Blog – History, Trends, and Issues in HPT

This was another interesting week of articles.  I have seen how blended learning has advanced throughout the decade.  Most of my degrees have had some sort of blended learning to accommodate the needs of students.  Some courses have used in person combined with live on-line with other asynchronous methods to deliver course content.  I have also seen instances of blended learning in my military career.  As the technology has advanced, the military shift to blended learning has increased. 

Some of the articles we have read this week highlighted that blended learning is just as effective as face-to-face and that satisfaction was higher than for e-learning courses.  This makes sense since interaction with classmates is an important element in learning. It was surprising to see how other countries viewed blended learning.  In the late 2000’s, US was the leader in using blended learning in the workplace at about 75 percent while some Asian countries were below 50 percent in blended learning usage.  (Kim, Bonk, & Teng, 2009) I don’t think blended learning is the answer for improving learning until the content or material is assessed.  I have seen online content in some of my previous courses that was not related to the face-to-face information presented by instructors.  The disconnected material made it hard to know what to expect for assignments. 

Other than enrolling in courses that used blended learning, I have enrolled in several massive online open courses.  I think these courses are great for learning a unique skill for free. Some of the courses offer the opportunity to get a certificate but for a small fee.  This is helpful if you need to indicate that you have had verifiable training on a topic.  I was fascinated by the categories of MOOCs.  I had never thought about the courses from any other perspective but my own.  I am currently doing a course through edX in which I go through the modules, take quizzes throughout, and submit a project to be graded by the course instructors for final assessment.  Obviously, there is no pressure to complete but this is probably one of the disadvantages of this type of educational technology.  There can be thousands of people around taking this course at once while working fulltime.  Other life events take priorities so staying on pace becomes difficult. (Bonk, Lee, Reeves, & Reynolds, 2018) I think next time I will try to take a course with a friend or co-worker so that we push each other to complete and challenge each other to learn more. 

I think it is appropriate to address blended learning and educational technology with HPT.  I believe there has to be a human element to the instruction that is required to keep students motivated and a method to access material at any time to facilitate learning in both a school and work environments. 

References:

Bonk, C. J., Lee. M. M., Reeves, T. C., & Reynolds, T. H. (2018). The emergence and design of massive open online courses. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (4^th Ed.), (pp. 250-258). New York, NY: Pearson Education. Preprint available: http://www.publicationshare.com/3 or: http://publicationshare.com/pdfs/MOOCs_Reiser_book_by_Bonk_Reeves_Reynolds_Lee_Final_with_citation.pdf

Kim, K.-J., Bonk, C. J., & Teng, Y.-T. (2009, August). The present state and future trends of blended learning in workplace learning settings across five countries. Asia Pacific Education Review (APER), 10(3). (or perhaps something more specific: Teng, Y.-T., Bonk, C. J., & Kim, K.-J. (2009, February). The trend of blended learning in Taiwan: Perceptions of HRD practitioners and implications for emerging competencies. HRD International, 12(1), 69-84.