Photo Courtesy of Shena Macdonald
Sometimes the best journeys in life are the unexpected ones- the little pit stop you had at quaint coffee shop because a monkey stole your padkos or the magnificent storm sky that broke open a landscape while you sheltered under a bridge. Our experience of blended learning feels something like that. It was something we (Neith Moore and I) had heard about and were vaguely considering but most of the discoveries feel like we stumbled upon them and were surprised by the view.
In 2011 Moore was invited to a Microsoft presentation and they happened to mention Skydrive. Our school server was giving a lot of trouble at the time so we started saving things online. In that same year Moore also built a website (theopenstudio.co.za) as part of a web design short course she was doing through UNISA (University of South Africa).
Thus in Term 3 2011 we taught the Grade 10 Jewellery project off the website and the learners seemed to enjoy the concept of accessing work online. However Moore found that it was complex to alter projects on the website so she decided to try a blog at the end of 2011. I had thoroughly enjoyed handing in my assignments online at DUT and Moore was encouraging me to create a blog so I created my first online teaching experiment at the beginning of 2012.
Thus in Term 3 2011 we taught the Grade 10 Jewellery project off the website and the learners seemed to enjoy the concept of accessing work online. However Moore found that it was complex to alter projects on the website so she decided to try a blog at the end of 2011. I had thoroughly enjoyed handing in my assignments online at DUT and Moore was encouraging me to create a blog so I created my first online teaching experiment at the beginning of 2012.
Moore and I decided that it would be better to each have our own online classrooms as we each have slightly different styles and often work on different projects to facilitate sharing of physical resources within the Fine Art Department.
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