Reflection

I became aware of hybrid/blended class when I was a junior in high school. My school was turning a lot of classes into online or hybrid classes. I never signed up for these courses because I did not trust myself to spend the time outside of school to do the work. I knew once I got home, I would want to focus on sports or relaxing so I figured if I had to be at school, there was no point of these courses.

I think hybrid courses are a better option for students in college because we are not required to spend 8 hours a day in school which means we have more time outside of class to work on assignments. For the most part, I enjoyed the hybrid approach to LIS 201. I learned a lot about the many different varieties of online resources and I feel a lot more comfortable using them in the future. I thought the use of online material helped connect to the readings and lecture to really understand the full impact of technology in the information society. The readings and online activities helped get an overall picture of the positives as well as the negatives of the advancement of technology. After taking this course, I realized how important it is to meet face to face. Since discussion sections only meet once a week, it took a while for me to match names to faces. I knew everybody’s names from the blog posts but I wasn’t sure who was who in the class for a while.

I tried finding other hybrid classes through UW-Madison, but the only one I know of is Business Law and that is because I have to take it next semester. I did a Google search of blended/hybrid courses and there seems to be a wide variety of universities offering these courses.

I think universities should take caution in implementing hybrid/blending courses. I think for they are really beneficial for a technology and information class but I don’t know if I would sign up for a math or science class in this format.