Blended learning: Blendspace

Introduction

This post is targeting educators of all levels. It includes 7 parts:

1.What is Blendspace?  How does it support ELT?

2.How educators find it?

3.Try it out

4.My example

5.Limitations

6.My ideas on using it to teach English

7.Sources of information

What is Blendspace?  How does it support ELT?

Blendspace  is  a platform where teachers can create online lessons that can be blended in a traditional classroom. 

For teachers  creating your own English lesson on it is very easy, simply by searching for topics of your class on the platform, you will find abundant resources including doc, ppt and videos that were contributed by others. If you have better ideas, you can always design your own lesson by putting videos, texts, quizzes on it. the change of orders of slides is as easy as a drag and click.

For your students  Using blendspace to study English is also very easy. They will go through online slides by accessing it. While taking the class, they might need to do some quizzes to consolidate their learning. Students can also join shared lessons besides private ones that require a join code. In the process of viewing the slides, Students can as well give feedbacks to the teachers by liking or commenting on a specific slide.

How educators find it (from https://www.graphite.org/website/blendspace#more)

Easy and convenient! 

 Chris C.---"BlendSpace Makes Going Blended A No-Brainer!"

Ashley H.---"Blendspace is great for flipping, personalizing, and differentiating instruction."

However...

Mary Beth Hertz (Graphite Reviewer and classroom teacher)---"Teaching and learning style can be overly linear and lecture-centric."
Unknown source---"It focuses on direct instruction and sharing of info in a lecture-style format, and quizzes can only be multiple-choice."

Try it out! 

Different strokes for different folks. We can never know what it is like for ourselves unless we give it a shot. Now I am going to create a class with you.

First of all, log in if you have an account or sign up if you don't. I usually just sign up with my google account as it is convenient. After you log in, you will be able to see the dashboard just like the one below. 

As you can see, I haven't created any lesson, but I am going to do with you in a few minutes. Before you start, you can see there are some featured classes. watching them can help you model the class you want to design. I watched the ratios one and learnt that we could like my page to a tab, which is rather useful!

After having an idea in mind, we can start creating a lesson by clicking on the green button  "+New Lesson".

By this simple click, you will be able to name your lesson and get into an interface like the one shown below. I named this sample class "Spanish" and in line with it, I will put some Spanish material in it.

On the right of the interface, a search box will await you. You can type in the topic of your class and search for related material including ppt, video...e.t.c. For me, I searched for anything associated with Spanish.

After you click on the "magnifying glass", you will find a great wealth of material shown below it. choose one and drag it to any column on the left. But bear in mind that the order of slide depends on it. So put it in the order which you want it to be shown. You can change the order by dragging  the material into a different column. 

 After putting the material into a column. You can give a description to it by hovering over the material and clicking on the edit-liked icon. Then you can input the description and click "done". For me, I briefed in my audience by saying "this is a ppt talking about dirección(direction)".

When you play the slide, the description will be on the top right part.

Ok! Next, we can input some authentic material. Remember on the interface, inside a column you can see there a place where you can add text and quiz? let's try to add text first. Click on the "add text" button.

In the pop-up dialogue box, input the text. For me, I input "HOLA! COMO ESTAS?", which means "hi! How are you?" I also change the font and color of it.

Adding Quiz is easy as well as there is only one option: multiple choice.  You can type in the questions and answers. Don't forget to click on the right option before you click "done". I actually forgot to do that. The right answer to my question is "some tres."

So far I have introduced the basis of creating a lesson. Now it is time to share my sample with you.  It is a little sloppy but please don't tease me. =( 

You can click on the "share" button on top bar.

After the magic click, you will see that you can share it or even collaborate with others to work on it. There is also a "privacy" button where you can choose who you want to share it with. Sharing it is easy, you can copy the link and send to others or share it through social media. 

To make it easier, I embed the sample here. BUT remember, this is just a sample one.  That's why it is sloppy. But I can do far better than this!

Limitations

I think Blendspace is a very useful and easy tool which enhances teaching. It can be gone through by students alone as an extra class. However, I noticed some problems in the process of creating it. 

1. Searched material can't be read until you put it into the column and open it. I think it is time-consuming especially when there are so much to choose from.

2.Quizzes only include multiple choices and the explanation of multiple choice can't be shown.

3.There is no way that teachers can ensure students have done it, as it is so easy for students to just click through all the slides and not even look at it.

My ideas on using it to teach English

I think the biggest problem of using it to teach is that students don't want an extra English class in their spare time.  So my opinion is: make this a project, ask them to make one, peer review and assess it.

This idea is targeting Form 3 students who aged 13-14 in Hong Kong. Teachers of other levels can adjust it in accordance with their students' need.

1. I would put students into a group of 5, and give them a topic. Everyone in the group is responsible for one small perspective of the theme and  each learner has to make one to two slides in order to present the information.

2. After they have made a blendspace presentation, they will present it to another group and that group in turn present theirs. (presentations will be video-recorded)

3. Each group writes one short reflection (300 words) on their own presentation and one feedback (300 words) on another group's presentation.

4. Teachers assess the presentations and writings according to a standardized principle.

Sources of information

Pictures and comments in "How educators find it" are retrieved on February 15th, 2016 from website https://www.graphite.org/website/blendspace#more