Digital Learning - beyond eLearning and Blended Learning

If you've read my thoughts about the Flipped Classroom in USA Today this week, you probably are either in agreement with my caution over the excitement around the flipped classroom made popular by Sal Kahn or you are a flipped...

"...One of the major, evidenced-based advantages of the use of video is that learners have control over the media with the ability to review parts that are misunderstood, which need further reinforcement, and/or those parts that are of particular interest.  (Using technology to give students “control of their interactions” has a positive effect on student learning,)

It is important, though, not to be seduced by the messenger.  Sal Khan is very charismatic and has produced good videos to explain some complex mathematical concepts.  With the growth of open education resources via Youtube and Creative Commons, it is important to note that excellent video lectures have been and are freely/easily available.  The Flipped Classroom concept, though, was not developed and articulated by Khan but by teachers such as Karl Fisch and Jon Bergman/Aaron Sams.

The problem is that educators, as a group, know how to do and use the lecture.  When educators are asked to replace their in-class lectures with videotaped ones (either their own or others) that learners watch at home, educators may not know what to do with this now void in-class time.  Those who advocate for the flipped classroom state that class time can then be used for discourse and for providing hands-on, authentic learning experiences.   In a recent interview Khan stated. “If I was a teacher, this is exactly the type of class I’d want to teach, I don’t have to prepare in a traditional sense. But I do have to prepare for projects and all that, so I have to prepare for creative things” (Meet Sal Khan).  As Frank Noschese notes..."