Hybrid Courses

Honestly many of the courses I'm in this semester have some sort of hybrid approach, this one being very obvious, but lesser hybrid courses include my calculus class as well as my linguistic class. While both include written homework the is turned in each week, both also use online sources like Moodle and learn@uw for weekly online homework to be completed as well.

Regarding my personal experience with a hybrid designed course such as this, I'd have to conclude that while sometimes very frustrating, it's also extremely beneficial to the tech days we live in now. Preceding this course, I had never used or created a blog or wiki and so at times it was very confusing to upload, link, or constrain features especially without somebody to guide me through it at least once. However, after a couple of weeks I began to get the hang of things and become more comfortable with the online assignments we had each week. I think it's really important to have knowledge within these environments as I truly believe they will only continue to grow. As many readings have suggested, if you don't adapt you'll fall behind. So, while it's been a struggle and at times it's been even more of a nuisance at others I think it's really helped me expand from my comfort zone of solely paper-assingments. I think for this class, the hybrid coursework was very much needed as it brought the material of the class full-circle. But, I think for certain classes, caution should be approached when altering to a hybrid course as, at least in my eyes, technology should be appreciated but not overindulged.

Overall, some readings from the course packet as well as outside readings that I've encountered for this class have honestly been extremely relevant to the society we as humans live in today and it's been really interesting to learn more about technology which is so heavily prevalent in our lives. Certain readings were long and in my opinion, mundane and boring but for the most part, especially in the second half of the semester the readings were very easy to relate to and thus intriguing and beneficial.

Hybrid Courses

My search of hybrid courses reflected in finding a course in the nursing school which is focused on building skills and knowledge that is required to design and implement nursing interferences at advanced levels. Relevant concepts, theories, and research to support the development and implementation of nursing interventions for advanced practice are explored. After reading the course description, I came to the conclusion that, although interesting, this course is very different than the experiences had in LIS 201.

Our class utilized technology and the online aspect to enhance our face-to-face meetings. These other hybrid courses and online components seem to detract from the present lectures with peers and professors. Although very progressive and technologically savvy, I don't think that it is the best route to go, especially with the nursing realm.

My understanding of technology was certainly enhanced throughout the course, but I don't think that it was the best way of learning for me throughout the semester. I found it much more beneficial to be present in every lecture and discussion section to talk about the ideas with my peers. Face-to-face interaction seems to be more "hands on" and that is the environment that I thrive in.

Personally, I think it would be beneficial for educators and universities to steer clear from this automated society. The generation we live in is already automated enough that technology will be learned about eventually on our own. To enforce it through a class is almost enforcing this idea of robotics. I don't think that I would like to see this type of thing progress any further. I stated this in my Ignite presentation, and I identified with it in Professor Downey's example of Wal-E. I would hate for that society to become our reality. 

Hybrid Course

Overall I really enjoyed the hybrid course design. I thought the blog posts were a creative way to supplement lecture. They did not replace any in class time, but rather gave additional information to talk about and discuss in discussion. I think it is important that online work does not replace lecture time, or discussion topics. We discussed this at length in the material of this course as many people think the internet directly takes away from other things. I like that this class made sure not to make that mistake and instead only provoked other conversation from our blog posts.

I also think something like our class blog was interesting because that is what we are learning about, but this would be useful no matter what the subject is. It is simply another way to engage students and acts as a good way to ensure people are keeping up with lecture, or the readings.

While I clearly did like the blog, I did enjoy the discussion and lecture much better. I think you get more of a back and forth in discussion that it is very difficult to achieve on commenting on each others blog posts, but again the blog posts did provide ideas that students can take to discussion to discuss.

My favorite part of this course has been exploring issues that are very relevant to our lives, but that schools normally don't focus on. Everyone has heard about the problems and innovations that result from technology, but we rarely get to look at them as deeply as we did in this class and I really enjoyed that.

Hybrid Courses

The example I found online was that of the UW-Madison business school MHR 300 class. In this class students attend lectures, discussions, and do all of the normal school things, but on top of that they are also required to watch a lecture supplement before class each week, write blog posts about current business world events, and collaborate with students to work on a group project, which requires many forms of technology. Finally, the use of dropbox(similar to box) is very big in this class and that is where all online assignments get turned into.

My opinion of Hybrid courses is I think they are spectacular. I really like the idea of using blogs and other forms of technology to get students to interact outside of class. I also like the idea of using them to help students connect their in class teachings with the real world. One of the biggest questions, in my opinion, that students have is why is this relevant? By leveraging technology teachers have the ability to prove the relevance to students, which makes learning that much more intriguing for the students.

In the debate of online, or in person interactions I will always take the side of in person interactions. I am very worried that in person reactions could become the lost language of our generation. In my opinion it is a lot easier to make an impact and impress someone by showing them how well you can interact in person than it is to show them that you have a good online presence. Online allows a person to edit things, where as  in person comes straight from the heart.

Finally, I really enjoyed this class. I felt the lectures were very interesting and relevant to real world problems and solutions. I also liked the fact that we were forced to try and experiment with new technologies because I believe that it will be very beneficial to everyone in the near future even if they do not feel like it is at the current moment in time.

Hybrid Course

I really enjoyed the way in which this class was set up with in-person aspects as well as elements that required the use of Internet. I felt as though we were able to experience, in way, what we were learning, while we were learning it. The Internet is such a huge part of all of our lives as college students and also as people having grown up in a generation with the creation of all of the technology that we have today.
I feel as though I learned equally as much from the in-person portions of the class as I did with the online portions. My favorite aspect was probably the blog. I really liked the activities that we had to do and then blog about, and I also like the format of the blog, and the more relaxed nature of it. Although it is still a class assignment, there was less pressure while writing on the blog as there is with turning in a normal assignment. I also like using the Internet as a way to submit assignments because it eliminated the need to print everything.
I think that the course materials that we learned about were extremely interesting and gave me a new perspective on my life in terms of my use of the Internet and technology. From learning about the creation of the iPhone and the poor environmental effects, to teens' over use of technology and how that is affecting their socialization, the content of the course was incredibly relatable to my life, and opened my eyes to the effects that everything we use has on the world.
I think the fact that this course has online components makes the content and everything even more effective than it would have been with out the blog and wiki aspect.

Hybrid Courses

I found another example of hybrid courses in the UW-Madison school of engineering. According to the article I read, more engineering courses are trying to become hybrid courses in part due to budget cuts. The format of the courses seems very similar to ours, with an emphasis on doing more learning outside of class and not focusing on lectures. Personally, I really enjoyed the format of the class, mostly because it allows me to do things at my own pace and gives me flexibility for when I can complete my assignments. I think there are some disadvantages of doing more learning outside of class, because it can be harder to focus, but for the most part I preferred it to traditional courses. It was cool to get some background information of classmates online before the course, but I think in general I learned more about people by being in person and interacting with them. I think the course as a whole taught me a lot about things that are going on in my daily life that I had never considered. Especially when we got to the end of the course and talked about online experiences it was very interesting to learn about, and made me question whether I used technology too often.

Course Evaluation

The first result when I looked up hybrid courses was the website for UW – Milwaukee’s program. They listed the reasoning behind employing hybrid courses in their curriculum. They say doing so gives them new teaching opportunities, engages students, and increases student learning. These are all very similar to the reasons gave for this course being hybrid.  

I think hybrid courses are a nice change with the way classes are typically conducted. It taught me how to run online searches for materials relevant to the class I was in. I was better able to understand the material and how it relates to lecture with real life applications. However, I do not think this would have the same effect in other classes not related to the information society. Classes like science and history would have a less meaningful way of incorporating the online aspects in the way LIS manages to.