Blended / Hybrid Learning Exists - Now

Some folks at a thing/place called An Estuary are claiming that blended learning doesn't exist, yet.  The An Estuary is pretty good at getting press, so I'm guessing this posture might be just a way to get more attention for their new thing.  Fair enough, and maybe blended/hybrid learning doesn't exist yet down there in the coastal backwaters, but it does up here in the headwaters.

Consider This announcement about hybrid learning

And, This HLC Best Paper explains the nuance of hybrid and blended learning. More discussion will be needed before a consensus is reached about what to call what we're doing in classrooms these days.

This post points to the confusion.

Looking to the Christensen Institute for insights into blended learning is like asking the Baltimore Ravens players for insights into walleye fishing.  Professional football and walleye fishing are both in the category of 'sport,'  but they're very different.  The Christensen Institute is 'involved in' education, but there isn't anyone in the institute with any substantive experience in teaching.  Real insights into blended learning come when one has actually done it for a few years.  It helps if one has done it both as a teacher and student, and also at varying levels.

Some of us have been doing it for a few years, and I'm pretty sure someone at An Estuary has seen blended learning before, even if it wasn't labeled as such.  This guest post describes blended or hybrid learning, but labeling the learning isn't what's important.  As noted in this post where I,  again, took issue with the Christensen Institute, Anders Norberg has called blended learning A Boy Named Sue.  

 The point is, if you're paying attention to what's available for you to use as a teacher, you'll likely be doing what could be called blended or hybrid teaching, and your students will doing blended or hybrid learning. Good teaching and learning is the goal.