Book review
The Blended Learning Book
Pfeiffer (2005)
Author: Josh Bersin
Review by Donald Clark, Epic
This is one of the better books on blended learning
I’ve read, and I’ve read a few. It is credible because
it attempts to do the subject justice by providing a definition,
analysis and recommendations for the design, development and delivery
of optimal blends, along with many excellent case studies. In this
sense it’s fairly exhaustive. I have real issues with his
overall taxonomy and some of the detail, but who wouldn’t
in such a thorough attempt at such an inherently fuzzy concept.
Bersin is an IBM bod by background (always a bit of a worry!) but
has been around e-learning for a while, in Arista, an early LMS
company, then DigitalThink, and now as an independent consultant.
This guy’s been around so the book is based on real experience.
In other words, he’s not just some theorist popping out models
without reference to the real world.
His history of technology-based, blended learning is short and
misses several important delivery channels and technologies. He
leaps straight from CD-ROM to LMSs - all very confusing. However,
to be honest, why dwell on the topic? Just give this disappointing
appetiser a miss and get to the main course
A lists of lists
Bersin’s fond of numbered lists. I like this, as he lays
his thoughts on the line. So I’ll list his lists as I go along
with critiques.
Years of research, he tells us, has shown that people learn in
different ways – THREE ways to be precise:
- Visual learners
- Auditory learners
- Kinaesthetic learners
This is not very helpful, falling into the trap of regurgitating
old learning styles theory, and seems to be contradicted by his
next list.
SIX modes of learning:
- Reading
- Seeing
- Hearing
- Watching
- Doing
- Learning by teaching
Again there’s a little confusion here – compare 2 and
4.
Then we have FOUR types of Corporate training:
- Information broadcast
- Critical knowledge transfer
- Skills and competency development
- Certification programmes
Again this is a little simplistic, if not confusing, as these are
not really types, they overlap, and don’t really describe
the learning landscape.
He has EIGHT criteria for selecting blended learning:
- Program type
- Cultural goals
- Audience
- Budget
- Resources
- Project time
- Learning content
- Technology
This is good, although scalability is another good criterion. To
be fair he does discuss this later.
His SIXTEEN media types are:
- Instructor-led
- Webinars
- Courseware
- Simulations
- CD-ROM courseware
- Rapid e-learning courseware
- Internet delivered video
- EPSS
- Offline video
- Video conferencing
- Collaborative systems
- Conference calls
- Job aids
- Workbooks
- Books
- On-the-job exercises
This one’s a bit on the light side and ‘conference
calls’ seem well out of place.
Now these numbered lists are useful as they provide a framework
for discussing the practical implementation of blended learning.
Most of the discussion in this area is a woolly appreciation of
mixed strategies without actually stating what those strategies
are or how one decides on the optimal strategy. One can disagree
with many of his entries and point out obvious omissions, but this
would be churlish. On the whole this is a reasonable attempt to
classify, analyse and decide on good blends.
top
Costs
Budgets are covered in Chapter 6, and covered well. The fixed cost
problem, cost per learner and fixed versus variable costs all receive
detailed attention. Case studies include BT, NCR, Siemens, Kinko’s,
Verizon, Bell Canada, Peoplesoft, Royal & Sun Assurance among
others and there’s some interesting data here:
Costs per project:
- Highest cost: $5,800,000
- Lowest cost: $130,000
- Average cost: $1,308,571
Cost per learner:
- Highest cost: $1,400
- Lowest cost: $3.14
- Average cost: $179
- Total number of learners 1,072,000
Content, technology and project management
On content development there’s a useful list of development
tools and the main vendors. He also provides some excellent screen
grabs from the likes of Cognitive Arts and Ninth House to show that
there’s more to content that the ‘book behind glass’
approach.
Technology options wisely include low cost LMSs and even no LMS
at all. This is good news. Bersin is that rare breed - someone who
sees beyond these monolithic options. However, he fails to guide
the buyer on costs or go further with now realistic options such
as open source.
The final chapter is on the project management of the launch, rollout
and support. In only 20 pages he covers rather a lot with some excellent
reports from Bell Canada, Rockwell, Hoffman La Roche and CAN Insurance.
A useful case study from Kinko includes their useful Content Description
Model which is used as a template for gathering data to feed into
designing their blended solutions.
- Content stability
- Content complexity
- Degree of interaction
- Frequency of utilisation
- Dissemination speed
- Population size
Each of these criteria has a 1-5 scale.
At last, someone who has taken the concept of blended learning
seriously. Bersin is not a woolly educational academic, and it tells.
He’s a little short on considering the true range of components
for blending and one could argue that blended learning has been
overtaken by the formal and informal learning debate. However, this
remains the best book on blended learning in the market.
BUY IT
|
