Blended learning?

Nowadayas, we are getting used to hear about this new term: blended learning. But, do you know what this mean? Roadmap for Competency-based Systems explains this expression as:  "The term blended learning is generally applied to the practice of using both online and in-person learning experiences when teaching students."

I embed a short video, just in case you want to have a clearer and  more "visual" idea:

In this new way of teaching and learning, students can attend normal lessons and, at the same time, keep the in-class discussions and works going after lessons via platforms, virtual classrooms and/or social networks. Students can take a lot of advantages when learning in this "combined" way:

• Students have greater time- flexibility and freedom, as many times they can choose when and where to work or participate in different activities (despite the fact that there might be a tight deadline);
• Students can participate more in class discussions since they can choose environment- online or face-to-face- in which they feel more comfortable;
• Students have more time to reflect upon a specific topic, or to select and share relevant material;
• Students have access to different kind of materaials (books, internet, partners, parents, etc.);
• Students can learn and acquire diverse skills from using the computer and the internet.

I have just mentioned some of the most important- for me- advantages of working with blended learning, but the list is much longer, and if you want to add some more, you are more than welcome.

Source: 

• http://www.nxgentechroadmap.com/CCSSO_glossary.pdf
• https://sites.google.com/a/idahopd.org/blended-learning/advantages-and-challenges

Didactic sequence + web 2.0

Some time ago, our teacher of ECO asked us to create a didactic sequence for an imaginary course using one or more web 2.0 tools and to show the final outcome from our students. My partners and I had to teach irregular verbs in the past simple. After analyzing all the web 2.0 possibilities, we decided to work with Storybird; this resource lets us create, as I wrote in  my last post,  art-inspired stories. As final outcome, our ficticious group of students had to create a story about Ancient World , using the previoulsy mentioned tool, in order to share all their stories

To begin with this didactic sequence, we made a video in order to show "our" students what Ancient World is and to help them activate their schemata so as to create a brainstorming on the board.

After working and talking about the video and some civilizations, we presented a legend called The Secret Power of Ra with Storytbird, so students  had a model of what they were expected to create:

http://storybird.com/books/the-secret-power-of-ra/ 

Finally, we worked with some past irregular verbs that appeared in the story; and students had to complete some worksheets with those verbs in order to practice.

Although I presented  a general view of our didactic sequence, I hope you have seen how we can use our lessons to introduce different tools so as to teach English and to let students know how to employ them appropriately for different purposes.