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.