Proposal for the Development of Blended Learning at Universidad Catlica de Colombia

1. Introduction The Centro de Lenguas de la Universidad Catlica provides language training to undergraduate students of the university from all careers, also there are extension courses for graduate students and all the community in general. All the programs offered are within the Common European framework of reference for languages, and most students take one course of 120 hours and are evaluated as A1 students. Most students decide to take their English training at the end of their career, therefore we account with students in the last semester of their careers. The programs offered are mostly focused on speaking and communication, but lack of a strong virtual component that provides students with support and additional tools to improve their learning process. This proposal intends to provide new methodologies and virtual solutions that help improve the program we have by implementing new tools and virtual components, designed to make learning easier and more interactive.

2. E-learning y B-learning Background (Existing practice) For many years the university has included English as a compulsory subject for all careers, however, the language programs designed have not included a solid virtual component. Sometimes teachers work a isolated in virtual projects, that are assigned to an specific group, but there is not a general component or virtual in the programs. The only virtual contact students have during the course is a virtual lab: every week students have to access an online page that provides a collection of vocabulary classified by categories, each category offers a list of vocabulary related to the category, also if you click with the pointer on top of a word, it provides audio with the pronunciation of that word. Students are assigned one The 100% online courses are delivered through the universitys online Campus (using sakai) where students also have access, via a link, to the Tell Me More platform. Students are expected to study and complete the work set for them on Campus and Tell Me More each week and they also receive an individual 15 minute tutorial session every week via Skype with their course tutor. Students on the blended courses also have access to the Universitys online Campus and Tell Me More. Each week they are required to complete certain units of the Tell Me More platform, which

occupies most of the students out-of-class time but occasionally the tutor may set homework to be done on Campus. These courses follow Design 1 of the blended and flexible learning frameworki as the Campus is used mainly as a reference where they can find the course guide, some learning resources, and their grades for the course and check the calendar to see when work is due in. The blended courses consist of four hours of face-to-face hours a week and three hours online (semi-intensive) or eight hours of face-to-face hours and six hours online (intensive). 3. Context and Participants CONTEXT The course participants will be the eleven teachers currently working at Plus Language, two fulltime teachers and nine part-time teachers. Five of these teachers have experience of teaching on our 100% online courses, the other six have only worked on blended courses. All the teachers manage the Tell Me More platform and have a basic understanding of how to use the universitys online campus. 4. Objectives of the practice For teachers to understand their role as e-moderators. For teachers to learn how to use web 2.0 tools that were previously unknown to them. For teachers to learn to select the appropriate tools for the creation of specific learning activities. For teachers to learn to make optimum use of the universitys online platforms. For teachers to learn to use appropriate criteria for online evaluation and assessment.

5. Rationale Currently the online Campus (Sakai) is underutilized by all the English teachers, even on the 100% online courses. On the blended courses, time constraints are a factor but it is also due to teachers lack of knowledge about how to use the different tools available to them. This not only includes how to set up appropriate activities using the tools but also how to evaluate them. For example, teachers have said I dont use forums because they are so complicated and time-consuming to evaluate. It is obvious that teachers need to have a better understanding of how to use different tools and have tips and guidelines about how best to evaluate and give feedback to students. There are also cases of tools being used inappropriately, for example a forum is not used for any sort of collaborative work but for students to post individual homework which doesnt generate any debate or discussion. The 100% online teachers are generally good at sourcing ready-made online materials for their courses but few have the skills or knowledge to create their own online materials

adapted to their students specific needs, particularly in terms of audio-visual material. There is also a lack of collaboration and interaction among students on online courses at the moment as forums; chats and group work are minimal. There is a real need for online courses to become more interactive in order to align them with the communicative focus of the face-to-face classes and teachers therefore need to be equipped with the skills and knowledge to create interactive and collaborative e-courses. 6. Implementation The training program will be delivered through five two-hour face-to-face sessions and will be supported by weekly online research and activities throughout the course of ten weeks. Participants will be expected to spend a minimum of three hours each week online for a total of 40 hours of study. Week Week 1 Week 2 What differences are there between online and face-to-face learning environments? What makes a good online teacher? What factors are important to take into account when teaching online? What is the role of an e-moderator? LMS vs. Open Access Social Media. Do we need an online campus (LMS)? Week 3 Week 4 Presentation of Web 2.0 tools. How can these tools be used on courses? What kind of activities can be designed with these tools? What advantages and disadvantages do they have? Research of different web 2.0 tools: each participant selects a tool to research and present to the class. Activity: design a lesson plan using one of the web 2.0 tools that you have not used before. Upload to the online platform. Face-to Face Online Forum: online learning - what are the benefits? What are the drawbacks? Can quality education be delivered online? What is web 2.0, What web 2.0 tools do teachers know? How do they use them in their virtual classrooms?
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Week 5

Wikis: what are wikis? How can they be used for language learning activities? What are the advantages and challenges of using wikis in an online classroom? Use a wiki to

brainstorm ideas. Week 6 Week 7 Review of wikis. Moderating forums and other collaborative work: how to deal with different types of e-learner. Design a collaborative writing task and specify the teaching objectives and learner profile (level, age etc.) Referencing materials. Importance of referencing materials. How should it be done? Podcasts, webcasts and web-conferencing. What is the difference between them? How can each of them be used for language learners? Research and presentation of different audiovisual tools, which ones do you like best and why? Production of audio-visual podcast: specify learning objectives and learner profile. Presentation of podcasts. How to assess online activities. What should the rubrics be for assessing forums, wikis and other online tasks? Course evaluation.

Week 8 Week 9 Week 10

7. Project Partners

8. Positive Aspects which will support implementation All of Plus Languages teaching staff have experience of blended learning so they all have some knowledge of online learning resources and basic tools. This means that the barrier to online learning has already been broken down. Although some teachers continue to be a little technologically adverse, they realize the importance of ICTs for learning and understand the need to continue updating their knowledge in this area. Another positive aspect of the teaching staff is that they are a relatively small team (eleven people) and there is a real sense of community among them. They share resources and are willing to help each other both in lesson planning and the use of online tools. Most importantly, Plus Language has the full support of the universitys rector when it comes to developing and improving our online and blended programs.

9. Risks or challenges to implementation Nine out of eleven of the teachers at Plus Language work on part-time contracts and nearly all of them have teaching hours in other institutions and companies. All teachers are expected to attend a meeting on the second Thursday of every month, where they participate in a one hour teacher development workshop but it is often difficult to arrange training time over and above this. For this reason, the bulk of the course will be taught online with face-to-face sessions bi-monthly, by extending the normal programmed meeting time and adding an additional session. 10. Projected results It is hoped that after the course teachers will have an increased enthusiasm for e-learning and a heightened curiosity to research new ways of creating more dynamic and collaborative e-learning activities for their students. It is expected that teachers will have a better understanding of their role as emoderators and feel more confident about how to evaluate and give feedback to students online. Participants are projected to learn how to use new web 2.0 tools that were previously unknown to them and be able to select appropriate tools for different learning activities and objectives. It is hoped that after the course all teachers will make better use of the Universitys online Campus on both blended and 100% online courses but also go beyond the limitations of Sakai when necessary to develop the best e-tivities for their students needs. 11. Follow up actions Following the course the teachers will be able to share ideas and links to tools and resources through a wiki page. Teachers will also have a chance to collaborate and keep each other updated in Plus Languages monthly training sessions. It is also important for new teachers who join the Plus team to participate in this e-learning course, either before being contracted or during the first few months of starting work. The course could be programmed once or twice a year, depending on the number of new teachers that join the language centre. As academic coordinator, it is vital to keep constant track of both teachers and students activities throughout their courses and to give guidance on how they can make improvements to the way they are using online tools or creating and carrying out online and blended activities.

Almpanis Timos et al. (2010) Proposing a framework for Blended and Flexible Course Design, IADIS International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in Digital Age, CELDA.