The Outlook on Blended Learning in Secondary School

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Increasingly, students today are highly self-assured with respect to their technological capacities. Whereas existent teachers may have to put forth extra efforts in keeping pace with modern media demands, teachers-in-training and those destined for the profession will enter the classroom already prepared with the necessary knowledge and comfort level that the Blended Learning environment demands. Currently we are seeing the en masse introduction of cutting-edge educational technologies in elementary and secondary schools alike – as accessibility in this area spreads, it becomes apparent that the stage is set for Blended Learning to lead the future of education.

The future is this: the classroom is both tangible and virtual; though students will enter and exit the physical room in line with school hours, the opportunities for extension of this environment to anywhere and everywhere are perpetual – always ‘open’ for students to access at leisure. Throughout the United States, already there are numerous illustrations of this. In San Francisco’s Urban School, a 1:1 laptop program for students is in place. Computerized Science and Mathematics models are offered to all students – whether for remedial work, skills practice, or enrichment beyond the classroom. The use of connected online communities for student-to-student literature discussions has been an innovative and exciting support to the Language Arts program. So far, the results here indicate a more profound engagement with the material, leading to more “meaningful” responses from students. Further, History students are making their mark upon local and global communities via their online election resources, and their prized Holocaust-survivor website, respectively. Courses teaching foreign languages are re-invented with the availability of easy-to-use voice recording and listening applications (Levin, year?).