This article, based on a report titled, “The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning” points out the potential ‘dangers’ of cramming blended learning into our current environments. These paragraphs succinctly outline this danger:
“There is a significant risk that the existing education system will co-opt online learning as it blends it into its current flawed model—and just as is the case now, too few students will receive an excellent education,” the report states.
“Today’s education system is a monolithic one that was built to be like a factory system,” Horn explained to eSchool News. “Rather than measure learning and move individual students along to new concepts as they master previous ones, it measures seat time and moves students along when they hit certain dates on a calendar.”
“Time is fixed,” he continued, “and the learning is variable. This system worked really well in the past. But now that we are asking it to educate every student to his or her highest potential, it was never built to do this job.”
The big danger with integrating technology into education, said Horn, is “that we do what we’ve always done, which is to implement it as a sustaining innovation rather than a disruptive one—that we simply layer technology over the traditional system, which would then co-opt it.”
The above quotes are from Michael Horn, author of a fantastic, thought-provoking book titled “Disrupting Class.” In the article linked below, there’s a short video with Horn that’s worth the few minutes it takes to watch.
The article is here.