blended learning

A lot of people don’t understand what blended learning is or why it could benefit their students. That lack of understanding is another barrier identified in the new CDE paper “Blended Learning in Rural Colorado: Status and Strategies for Expansion.”

Without access to fast Internet, schools cannot implement blended learning.

That’s one of the barriers revealed in the recent study “Blended Learning in Rural Colorado: Status and Strategies for Expansion.” An example from the paper:

One school has to shut down Internet access to all classrooms when a math class is streaming online content.

In order for blended learning models to truly get a toehold in the American public education system, they need to be implemented in existing district and charter schools. By no means is this a slight against new schools starting with blended learning as a core component of its structure. We need those too. But in order to accelerate the blended learning’s potential for individualized, differentiated teaching and student outcomes, more pilot classrooms and whole school programs are needed in existing classrooms.

The 3rd Colorado Summit on Blended Learning (CSBL) spanned 3 days this year; the third and final day focused on policy in support of blended learning, happening in states across the country. Check out our lineup of speakers, their credentials, presentations and what their states are up to.

DK's partner iNACOL is putting on a webinar tomorrow with Jefferson County's Bauernschmidt, who's presented at the 2011 and 2012 summits on blended learning.

DK's work on blended learning is constantly enlightened by talent outside of Colorado's Front Range and challenged by the limitations of rural access to technology. We've seen practitioners in the rural parts of the state doing incredible things with blended, for example Mike Post from Buena Vista, who spoke at the March 22 blended learning summit.

This post is by Jason Shiroff (below, seen in his classroom), a teacher at the Odyssey School. He also participated on the panel at DK's first 2012 blended learning summit event on March 22.

Dan Morris from eNet Colorado is part of a panel on professional development and teacher certification at the April 24th blended learning summit.