IS THE JURY STILL OUT ON "BLENDED LEARNING"?

Use of a Web-based Collaborative Teaching Platform

Audrey Jennings

MIS Department, Dublin Institute of Technology, Aungier Street, Dublin 2, Ireland

Alan Mullally, Catherine O'Connor, Dudley Dolan, Adrian Parkinson and James A. Redmond

Department of Computer Science, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Keywords: Blended learning, Traditional learning, e-Learning, Web-based teaching, Collaborative platform, Distance

learning, face to face learning.

Abstract: Web-based collaborative platforms appear to show controversial potential for improving teaching and

learning productivity and flexibility at Third Level. A pilot study was conducted at Trinity College Dublin

(TCD) to explore pertinent operational, andragogical, support and social issues with a view to providing

insights for the future. While a blended solution, i.e. a mixture of traditional and eLearning is often

suggested, it appears that student support for it is not very high and proved disappointing in this study.

1 INTRODUCTION

This research initiative focuses on the impact of

online synchronous learning using a web-based

collaborative platform with part-time, mature,

evening Information Systems university students, in

full-time employment. However there was some

asynchronous learning in that the students could

recall the saved lectures and replay them at a later

date.

There is a dearth of research material in the area

of web-based online synchronous delivery of

learning in traditional universities “Considering the

massive adoption of e-learning, what is surprising

and cause for concern, is that we know so little

about the use of this medium to facilitate learning"

(Gilbert, 2000)(Garrison, 2003).

The Trinity College Dublin (TCD) project was

funded under the European Union GENIUS

(Generic E-Learning Environments for the new Pan-

European Information and Communication

Technologies Curricula) programme (Dolan,

O’Connor, Mullally and Jennings, 2003) (Dolan,

O’Connor, Mullally and Jennings, In press). The

overall purpose of the project was to explore the

real-life practical issues associated with applying a

web-based collaborative platform embodying both

synchronous and asynchronous dimensions. One of

the goals was to assess the efficacy of the course

presentation via web-based collaborative platform

versus the traditional lecturing approach. A pilot

study was carried out using the Web-based

Collaboration platform, LearnLinc (parsecinfo,

2005) in TCD. It was envisaged that this would

provide a basis for more substantial studies with

these technologies in the future.

The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate

practical and operational aspects and issues to do

with using such a tool-set. A TCD staff member

(DD) presented a course entitled "IT and the

Enterprise" to a group of mature, evening

attendance, computer-literate, undergraduate

Information Systems students. Of this cohort of

students more than 76% worked with computers

greater than 30 hours per week.

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

The use of LearnLinc as a collaborative web-based

platform was a requirement of the overall GENIUS

project. LearnLinc provides two separate

environments, the virtual “campus” and the virtual

“classroom”. The virtual campus is modeled on a

237

Jennings A., Mullally A., O’Connor C., Dolan D., Parkinson A. and A. Redmond J. (2006).

IS THE JURY STILL OUT ON "BLENDED LEARNING"? - Use of a Web-based Collaborative Teaching Platform.

In Proceedings of WEBIST 2006 - Second International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Society, e-Business and

e-Government / e-Learning, pages 237-244

DOI: 10.5220/0001248102370244

 SciTePress

physical college campus in that it provides

administrative functions with registration of students

for courses, course creation, class creation, adding of

course materials and assigning lecturers to lectures.

The virtual classroom provides an environment with

whiteboard area, synchronized web browser,

application sharing, text chat, hand raising, questions

and answers, feedback, attendance list and an agenda

for the class.

A participating student should be equipped with a

computer conforming to at least the minimum

specification as set out by LearnLinc and a network

connection fast enough to support the LearnLinc

server connection (Dolan, O’Connor, Mullally and

Jennings, In press). Students were also required to

have downloaded the client software. The students

in a computer laboratory environment were issued

with headsets (microphone and earphones) so that

they could listen and speak to the lecturer without

sound distortion and acoustic feedback from such a

noisy environment. The individual student could

communicate with the lecturer through text chat

either privately, where only the lecturer sees it, or

publicly where everyone in attendance sees the

message. The student can also communicate by

symbolically ‘raising the hand’ on the interface. The

lecturer sees the indicator for the hand raise and can

then give the floor to that student. A photograph of

the student appears and he/she can speak to the

lecturer and the class.

3 PILOT STUDY

Forty two Information Systems second year

undergraduate students (average age was 29 years,

about 75% male) of the Trinity College Dublin,

Computer Science Department completed all three

questionnaires in this pilot study. The students had

full-time jobs and attended lectures in the evenings

from 6 to 9 p.m. They were given a (sub)-course in

"IT and the Enterprise" by a TCD lecturer (DD)

using LearnLinc. This course, consisting of 4 weekly

2-hour evening slots, was part of a larger 22-week

course. The whole 22-week course was examined

conventionally, with one question devoted to the

aspects of "IT and the Enterprise" covered in the

web-based contribution. The students were

distributed across various locations, at home, on

campus (in computer laboratories) or at places of

business. Three questionnaires were used in the

TCD studies.

3.1 Questionnaire One

This questionnaire was presented on the first night

of term to the students after the Lecturer had advised

the students of the forthcoming teaching

collaboration project. Questionnaire 1 was used to

gather information about the availability of student

computers with the required specification to partake

in online lectures. Ideally students were to use either

a computer in their workplace, in their home, or in a

College computer laboratory, whichever location

suited best. The main purpose of this questionnaire

was to find out technical requirements and support

information so that a support team, administrative

issues and a computer laboratory could be made

available for the students. Forty six students

completed Questionnaire 1.

3.2 Questionnaires Two and Three

Questionnaires 2 and 3 were designed to capture the

before and after mindset of the students. The

questionnaires were in two parts, Section A and

Section B. Section A had twenty seven quantitative

questions (see Appendix) and Section B had ten

qualitative questions. The twenty seven quantitative

questions used a nine-point Likert scale varying

from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 9 (Strongly Agree).

Forty nine students completed Questionnaire 2.

Questionnaire 2 was used to assess the students’

expectations of the upcoming online eLearning

experience before the experiment started. It

contained the core twenty seven questions and the

ten qualitative questions. Forty nine students

complete Questionnaire 2.

Questionnaire 3 was used to assess the students'

opinions on the performance of the eLearning

experience after the experiment finished. It

contained the twenty seven core questions, the ten

descriptive questions as in Questionnaire 2 and an

additional twenty one questions focusing on the use

of the facilities and functions of LearnLinc as used

in the online lectures. These two questionnaires were

used to assess the effectiveness of the use of Internet

technology to create a virtual classroom to support

or enhance the learning experience within the course

‘IT and the Enterprise’. Forty two students

completed Questionnaire 3.

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4 RESULTS

The results and conclusions below are a summary of

the main quantitative findings (Jennings, 2005). The

differences between the questionnaire question

response means for the Performance (Post

Experience) (Questionnaire 3) and the Expectations

Pre Experience (Questionnaire 2) question response

means are given in (Jennings, 2005) and the

following Tables 1 - 4. The findings are discussed

under four headings: Operations, Andragogical,

Support and Social, four areas into which 26 of the

27 questions may be grouped. The following Tables

give the Performance Means from Questionnaire 3

less the Expectation Means from Questionnaire 2 for

each question (i.e. P - E (means)).

4.1 Operations

Table 1: Performance-Expectations Mean Response.

Questions Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10

Mean

Response

7.4 7.8 7.6 7.6 7.4 7.2 5.3 6.2 5.8 6.9

S.D. 1.6 1.3 1.6 1.6 1.6 1.7 2.0 2 2.1 1.6

P-E

(mean)

0.3 0.5 0.1 0 -0.3 -0.2 -2.0 0.2 -0.4 0.3

Table 1 indicates that the students found ease of

access to computing facilities (Q1), found the

technology easy to use (Q2), they also found access

to a quiet space (Q3). They were happy with the ISP

that they used (Q4), but had higher expectations of

it. They were happy with the technical competence

(Q5) and fast response time from support and they

had a high level of confidence in the systems being

used even though their expectations were higher

than performance (Q6). Q7, which concerns disaster

recovery, wasn’t put to the test during the

experiment, so perhaps that is why the score is low,

64% of the Performance Questionnaire respondents

versus 94% of the Expectations Questionnaire

respondents. The difference between the

Performance mean minus the Expectation mean is –

2, perhaps students' understanding of what was

meant by disaster recovery was different. Q8

concerns the system response time and indicates that

the performance exceeded expectation. Q9 concerns

technical training and students seem disappointed

with the level of training, 74% Performance versus

84% Expectations. Disaster recovery (Q7) and

training (Q9) account for the difference in the

overall percentage of students' expectations, 92%,

for the Agree-Strongly Agree scale 5 - 9, and the

percentage of students' performance, 88%.

A student commented: “It was the first time

that I used technology for education purposes so

maybe that was the reason why I felt anxious and a

bit unsure what to expect from the project. Also my

class were the first to use the software so I expected

LearnLinc to be troublesome and felt the class were

the “guinea pigs” in trying to find bugs etc., in the

program. Even though I had negative thoughts I was

excited in using the software for the first time. It was

something new and it was going to be a break from

the traditional classroom lectures.”

4.2 Andragogy

Andragogy deals with adult learners (Infed 2005).

Table 2: Performance-Expectations Mean Response.

Questions Q13 Q16 Q18 Q19 Q20 Q22 Q23 Q24 Q25 Q27

Mean

Response 7 6.3 6.4 5.9 4.4 5.2 4.6 4.2 5.8 5.2

S.D. 1.6 2.8 1.4 1.9 1.8 2 2 2 2.1 1.9

P-

E(mean)

-0.3 -0.4 -1 -1.4 -0.8 -0.7 -1 -1.1 -0.6 -1

Table 2 indicates that, in the main, the students did

not find it, compared with Expectation

(Questionnaire 2) to be a positive learning

experience. Their commuting time was reduced

(Q16), but the standard of presentation was not as

high as expected (Q18), nor was the session as

stimulating as expected (Q19). It was harder to

concentrate (Q23), 73% down to 48%, and they

participated less than in a face-to-face lecture (Q24),

67% down to 40%. There was no great difference in

enriching the learning experience (Q25). The

expectations in the use of technology improving

productivity (Q27) dropped from 82% to 60% after

performance. When examining P – E (mean) figures

they are all negative. Q18 - the standard of

presentation – can be linked back to the removal of

animation and colour images from the PowerPoint

slides (to reduce the bandwidth load). Obviously the

use of the synchronised Web Browser, Question &

Answer facility didn’t enhance the learning

environment. Q19 – not more conducive to learning

– can be related back to the newness of the virtual

classroom environment and the short length of the

experiment. Q23 – harder to concentrate – can be

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linked to the abuse of the text chat facility in the

virtual classroom. Q24 – participated less than in

face-to-face lecture – can be related back again to

being comfortable with the environment and the

newness of the technology. Q27 – improving

productivity – the lecture was shorter, only an hour

long, so perhaps students felt they had lost out, even

though the lecturer was of the opinion that he

covered material faster.

A student commented: “It was obvious also

that it is necessary to develop a degree of comfort

with using the learning tool, and that this comfort

must be acquired by both the lecturer and student.

The first lecture was delivered at a speed which far

exceeded what was usual, but by the final lecture the

delivery was much more attuned to an appropriate

pace for the particular learning environment.”

Another commented: “I was surprised to observe

that I didn’t recall the content of the lectures as well

as those which had been delivered in the traditional

manner. I think my recall is partly tied up with

visual cues received from the lecturer and in

absence of more experience with remote learning

this is difficult to assess. I also didn’t take any notes

to which I could refer later. This wasn’t a conscious

decision, as I came prepared for taking notes. I

believe it was a consequence of engaging with this

particular medium. At least temporarily, engaging in

a cyber-space environment altered my behaviour.”

Veneema and Gardner (1996) have commented

“….students might seem engaged but understand

little because their response reflects more an

attraction to the medium rather than an

understanding….”.

4.3 Support

Table 3: Performance-Expectations Mean Response.

Questions Q8 Q9 Q10 Q11Q21

Mean Response 6.2 5.8 6.9 6 5.5

Standard Deviation (S.D.) 2 2.1 1.6 2.4 2.1

Performance-

Expectation(mean) 0.2 -0.4 0.3 -0.4 -1.1

As can be seen from the summary tables students

were more negative about the actual support

experience compared to their expectations. When

analysed further, the students were happy with the

training (Q9), response time of the system (Q8) and

response time from support staff (Q10). The students

were not so happy with the level of documentation

to support training (Q21), expectations 90% down to

performance of 69%. While the LearnLinc

environment does not require a great deal of

training, it does depend on the level of computer

literacy and comfort with working with computers

A student comment commented on the support

and the role of the ListServ email forum: “This

forum allowed students the opportunity to ask

questions regarding their technical difficulties. It

was apparent to me that a lot of the technical advice

came from fellow students, thus promoting a sense of

ownership and involvement by the students.”

Another student commented: “The LearnLinc

experiment fell very appropriately into our

Information Systems and the Enterprise course

because we could see first hand the approach, the

planning and the implementation methods adopted

by the Trinity LearnLinc management team to

ensure the smooth installation of the process. The

value of seeing our own team in action,

understanding the planning, test issues and people’s

reluctance to change was a worthwhile experience,

as someday it will be us implementing a similar

concept within our own organizations.”

4.4 Social

Table 4: Performance-Expectations Mean Response.

Questions Q12 Q14 Q15Q17

Mean Response 4.9 5.3 6.3 2.9

Standard Deviation (S.D.) 2.3 2 2.0 1.9

Performance-Expectation

(mean) -0.3 -0.1 -0.2 -2.5

The mean responses for all questions were negative

relative to expectations. As can be seen the students

felt that the technology reduced the interactive

experience (Q12), but less than was expected, 61%

down to 52%, just over half the participants. Some

people changed their mind with regard to working

on their own (Q14), and were comfortable with

using the technology to communicate (Q15). They

also felt that after using the technology they didn’t

need time to learn the environment that they thought

initially they would, Q17, 69% down to 17%, which

gives a very low average score.

One student commented negatively: “I found the

stifled silence of the computer labs distracting as I

forced myself in vain to find a point of interest whilst

I digested the information being fed to me.

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Personally I felt that I was not taking part in the

chat area throughout each class. That said, I do not

regret my participation in such an experiment, I

found it to be of some value.”

Perhaps if the student had been in a position to

benefit by accessing the lectures at home or at work,

this isolated feeling would be eroded by that benefit

(Hara and Kling, 1999).

Another student commented on the experience –

“Watching a match on television can’t compare to

“being there” in terms of experience, but it’s

warmer, you can watch replays and you don’t have

to leave your house. In some ways eLearning is the

very same.”

Another student commented on the social

impact:“There are also social implications; the

traditional evening course generates enormous

pressure on families, while the mother or father

attends a lecture for a few hours the other partner

stays at home to look after the children. This can

lead to marriage problems….”

5 BLENDED LEARNING

Blended Learning can be defined as learning events

that combine aspects of online and face-to-face

instruction. It has been claimed that blended systems

have been very effective (Spot+ 2004)).

A blend of traditional University teaching,

pedagogies and strategies coupled with the use of

emerging web-based collaboration platforms, both

synchronous and asynchronous, would appear to

offer significant potential for a blended eLearning

solution at Institutional, Faculty and Student level.

This research describes the implementation of a

blended learning environment, with the emphasis on

implementing and evaluating the online experience

that took place under the GENIUS project.

All course modules delivered in the degree course

in Information Systems, up to now, were delivered

in a traditional face-to-face lecture hall environment.

This project involved a change to the delivery

process for the part-time mature evening students. In

effect the students would be participating in a

blended learning approach. Where initially lectures

would be delivered in a face-to-face environment,

they would then partake in the series of online

lectures and then revert to face-to-face delivery. It

was hoped that the majority of students would

partake in the course off campus in a learning

environment was to be ‘Same Time Different Place.’

Online students are more likely to feel isolated

and require more support in that area. When students

have a problem, its seriousness multiplies because

they feel they are on their own, and it becomes much

more frustrating (Hara and Kling ). To enable a

sense of community students should be encouraged

to help each other, by using a facility like a Listserv

or chat room. This also gives a feeling of belonging

to a community.

The results of a question (Questionnaire 3 Section B

Question 23) on Blended Learning is as follows:

Table 5: Would you like to experience a blend of this type

of learning and traditional learning in your future years at

TCD? (Question after experiment).

Comment %

If there is a good reason for it 2

Lecture time to be extended to cover material

adequately

Only if technology/internet connection runs smoothly 6

Only in certain subjects 11

No, I prefer to attend college. Traditional method 13

Only to same extent. A few lectures a year. In

moderation.

Yes, I would like to experience a blend of this type of

learning and traditional learning in the future

100

In answering this multi-part question, the

respondents were restricted to choosing just one of

the options. In evaluating the responses from this

questionnaire, the results are not particularly

supportive of blended learning. An interesting

question in hindsight, but not asked at the time, was

how much blending is desirable? In this study the

eLearning component of the blended learning course

comprised 18% of the total course.

A student commented: “My final thoughts on the

project and in using LearnLinc are very different

from my initial thoughts. I would like to use it again

but only as a supplement to the traditional

classroom lectures.”

A smaller group preferred the traditional face-to-

face environment and found face-to-face more

conducive to learning. Marjanovic (1999) endorses

the importance in having some face-to-face sessions

before starting the online delivery sessions. This was

found to play an important role in nurturing

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interaction and for students to understand the style

of lecturing that the lecturer uses. It also helped to

open up dialogue when moving to the online mode.

This was one of the benefits of the blended learning

approach.

Students expressed the view that they would not like

to have online delivery all the time, but rather a

blended solution of traditional and online. This is in

line with what was found in the SPOT+ Survey of

two thousand students in twelve European

universities: “The 2,000 students surveyed in

SPOT+ Project were interested in the use of ICT for

information exchange, but expressed a stronger

preference for traditional education methods”

(SPOT+ 2004).

6 CONCLUSIONS

The key issues found under the four factors in this

pilot study are as follows:

Operational

Students seemed disappointed with the level of

training. The Performance was lower than

Expectation for Q9.

Andragogical

The students didn’t think the use of this internet

technology improved productivity, Q27.

The main findings were that the session was not as

stimulating as expected nor as conducive to learning

as expected for these 10 categories. Students found it

harder to concentrate and they felt that they

participated less than in a face-to-face environment.

They were also disappointed that the Internet

technology did not improve productivity.

Support

Students would have liked better documentation to

support technical training, Q21.

Social

Students felt that the technology reduced the

interactive experience, Q12. Students felt that they

didn’t like the idea of working on their own away

from fellow students, Q14. Students also felt that

they didn’t need as much time to learn the

technology environment as they thought they would,

Q17.

Other Issues

From a number of items of feedback, broadband is

essential for good performance.

How much blending is desirable? 10:90; 20:80 or

even higher? The students attend their course for

four years, three nights per week. If one of these

nights could be taken from home, it may give them

appreciable relief.

What types of course are suitable? This question

needs to explored further.

What learner situations are suitable e.g. distance

learning, commuting, home problems, remediation?

Blended learning is suitable for adults doing travel

for business and those with domestic

responsibilities. Some students in this pilot study

attended from the UK, Seattle and South Africa for

instance. It is also suitable for revision because the

course lectures are saved and can be reprised later.

How best to overcome the deficiencies of the e-

learning model, assuming that each one can ever be

overcome?

Blended learning is not cheap. Considerable

resources in terms of finance, time, staff (lecturing,

support and training) were necessary to get this pilot

study up and running.

What are the real advantages of the traditional

face-to-face situation that we are overlooking?

Further Work Needed

Four sessions are probably too few to overcome the

novelty effect for the students and also for the

lecturers to move sufficiently further along the

learning curve for this new medium. Longer courses

and more courses are needed. Longer courses would

allow more familiarity with the system and

equipment for lecturers, support staff and students.

More courses would also identify which courses and

material were more suitable. The issue of further

andragogical implications and their evaluation need

to be addressed in the longer term. A full

examination of the economic implications of this

medium is needed.

It is obvious that some, but not all, of the issues

which gave rise to problems in this study will

diminish or disappear as Broadband and computer

equipment continues to speed up.

However many other issues will not go away so

easily. In particular, a lot of students preferred the

traditional lecture over web-based presentation

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(Dolan, O’Connor, Mullally and Jennings, In press).

The main advantage for students is reduced

travelling time to lectures. However most of these

students spend quite a large percentage of their time

in front of computer screens at their work already

and report that they see little advantage, other than

reduced travel, in having the course material

presented by screen. A blended approach, that is a

mix of traditional lecturing with web-based

presentation is probably what is needed with the

blend, perhaps, being 90:10 in favour of traditional

at present.

A better evaluation template for the process with

the use of a control group is needed. A cross-over

study with half the students getting traditional

teaching for half the course while the other half get

the web-based collaborative platform for that half,

and vice-versa for the remainder of the course is

needed in a more complete study. It is also necessary

to measure the relative effectiveness of learning

performance in both of these approaches.

The eLearning paradigm provides opportunities

for the facilitation of individual differences. In

future applications, this issue could also be

addressed (Redmond and Parkinson, 2003)

(Parkinson and Redmond, 2005). In terms of

learning, not all personality and cognitive styles are

amenable to this type of instructional medium.

This pilot study illustrates the difficulties of

exploring virtual student/lecturer interactions in

eLearning environments. One unexpected result is a

much deeper appreciation of how much is involved

in the "traditional" lecturing environment and how

difficult it is to replicate it in a virtual classroom.

The term "blended" in blended learning seems to

imply that both traditional and eLearning can be

easily integrated. From these results it would appear

the blending may have more of the characteristics of

trying to blend oil and water.

The jury is not still out on blended learning. The

answer from this pilot study is that blended learning

needs considerable improvement before students

will readily accept it, except in situations of

necessity and in relatively small quantities.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank the Technical Support staff for their many

strenuous efforts.

REFERENCES

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2003 Experience in the use of synchronous eLearning

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Méndez-Vilas and J.A. Mesa González), m-ICTE

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Garrison, D.R. and Henderson, T.2003 E-Learning in the

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http://www.tltgroup.org/gilbert/NewVwwt2000--2-14-

00.htm

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http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4-12/hara/

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243

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APPENDIX

Questionnaire 3 A - Performance - Section A (Abridged

somewhat).

1. I found ease of access to computing facilities for this

project.

2. I found the internet technology to be easy to use.

3. I was able to access a quiet space in which to use this

technology at home/work/TCD.

4. I found the internet service I used was able to support

the use of this technology.

5. I found a high degree of technical competence from

college systems support staff.

6. I had a high level of confidence in the systems I used

7. I found that there was a provision for disaster

recovery/fall-back position.

8. I had excellent system's response time.

9. I received excellent technical training.

10. I had a fast response time from support staff to remedy

problems

11. I was in touch with my peers through the use of the e-

mail support facility.

12. I found the use of this technology reduced the

interactive experience of the classroom.

13. I found this learning experience to be positive

14. I liked the idea of working on my own away from my

fellow students

15. I was comfortable communicating with others using

this technology during live sessions.

16. I found the use of this technology reduced my

commuting time.

17. I needed to find the time to learn the systems I used.

18. I found a high standard of presentation of course

material

19. I found these sessions to be intellectually stimulating.

20. I found this learning environment to be more conducive

to learning than the traditional classroom.

21. I had excellent documentation to support technical

training.

22. I found the use of this technology enhanced my ability

to learn.

23. I found that participating in the online sessions on my

own allowed me to concentrate better.

24. I participated in discussion more freely in the virtual

classroom than in the traditional lecture theatre

25. I found the use of this technology enriched my learning

experience.

26. I understand that the benefits derived by myself from

the systems I use are being measured

27. I found the use of this internet technology improved

my productivity

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