Distance Education Innovations and New Learning Environments: Com ...

dreams and science fiction just 50 years ago. One ofthe hallmarks of great learning environments is interactivity—interactivity between students and instructors, among learners, and with learning materials. The present-day two-way interactive media options (asynchronous and synchronous online chat rooms, two-way video conferencing and imaging, etc.) now provide ample opportunity for learners and instructors to interact as fully as they would in a regular classroom (Keegan, 2000). These technologies help to create learning communities that extend beyond the walls of the traditional classroom—a characteristic of blended learning environments—and invite instructional designers to learn how to design robust instruction for these environments.

Blended Learning

What is blended learning? How did it develop? What are its uses and purposes? What are the best ways to create instruction for blended environments? The purpose of this study is to offer answers to these questions.

What is Blended Learning?

One of the unforeseen positive trends generated by the distance education movement is the growing popularity of blended learning. Simply stated, blended learning is an instructional approach that mixes traditional instructional practices (lecture, classroom interactive work with students, etc.) with distance education instructional practices (asynchronous and synchronous discussion boards, use of the Internet for retrieving and posting class assignments or supplemental instruction, multimedia instruction, etc.).

In educational literature, the terms blended learning and hybrid learning are often treated as synonymous. I agree with Osguthorpe and Graham (2003), who appealed to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to clarify the meaning of these two terms, that blended learning is a more fitting phrase for the educational phenomena described here. The OED defines hybrid as “derived from heterogeneous or incongruous sources; having a mixed character; composed of two diverse elements; mongrel” (“hybrid,”