Blended Learning: Blending in the Era of Advanced Technology

Abstract

This chapter describes blended learning in all its facets to provide a perspective on its potential uses as a solution to limitations in traditional and online educational endeavors, as well as the conceivable drawbacks of utilizing blended learning. The term refers to a wide range of activities including everything from entirely face-to-face learning to entirely online learning, but not both. Moving to entirely online education is costly and argued to lack some of the key presence-related social attributes; this is why blended learning is praised by many for its ability to incorporate the features of online learning with the “interactivity” of traditional settings, while also being considered as a challenge in terms of finding the ideal proportions of the mix. This chapter compares and summarizes some of the common blended learning models found in the literature and continues with drawing a conceptual framework, then briefly introduces the advantages and disadvantages. The remainder of the chapter concludes with a concise presentation of current research trends on blended learning.