66 The Handbook of Blended Learning

development plan and an organizational action plan. During phase III, these plans are reviewed with the first-line's manager. When satisfied that the student has demonstrated competency in the workplace, the second-line manager signs off. This final step in the learning process ensures that learnings are applied in the workplace. In addition to such application activities, students also complete more e-learning modules. Unlike phase I, where most modules are mandatory, the student chooses topics of personal relevance in phase III. This design en­courages managers to take an active role in the planning and execution of their own development. Phase III completes the new manager process.

Evaluation Strategy

Using the Kirkpatrick (1979, 1998) model on training impact evaluation, we eval­uated the overall effectiveness along two dimensions, leadership and e-learning, that correspond to our primary objectives. Outcomes were also evaluated along a continuum comprising a chain of impact leading from direct training effects to higher-order business outcomes. When investigating business outcomes, we dis­tinguished between cost avoidance and business result enhancements. Because this program represents a full year of investment in the development in each manager, we considered it important to measure success throughout the different phases of the program, not just at the end, and also eight months after the intervention. Furthermore, because our ultimate interest is in documenting long-term organi­zational changes, results from the previous year were also used as comparisons. We strive for two goals with our new evaluation framework: (1) to spread train­ing effectiveness information throughout the internal staff in order to drive con­tinuous improvement and (2) to measure with sufficient research rigor to illuminate true training effects.

Level I: Reaction

Two separate and independent studies of representative cohorts of students (JV = 520 managers) were done in August 1999 and August 2000 using confi­dential questionnaires and in-depth telephone interviews by a Harvard Business School professor to assess student satisfaction with content and delivery modality. Also, at the end of every Learning Lab, a company-administered student per­ception survey assesses content and delivery of every participant. Results are an­alyzed formally each quarter, and modules are changed or supplemented to respond to student needs. In phase III, student feedback is posted in Learning-Space, and Learning Lab facilitators receive individual feedback.

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67

Level II: Learning

In phase I, fifteen mastery tests (220 items on basic leadership and people-management principles and theory, legal and policy understanding, and other areas) are taken; all students must achieve 90 percent passing grades in order to move to phase II. Mastery is also demonstrated in phase II through collaborative role play­ing, feedback, and case studies. In phase III, mastery tests measure advanced con­tent areas that are dependent on knowledge mastered in phases I and II. Individual assessment is done using 360-degree feedback from managers, peers, and direct reports of students on competencies, managerial styles, and climate.

Level III: Transfer

An alumni assessment is conducted eight to nine months after completion (the time lag between course completion and measurement is intended to capture ingrained behavior change versus immediate posttraining effect) to measure two behavior change dimensions: (1) actual observed behavior changes and (2) changes in fac­tors that social science research has indicated are strong predictors of behavior. These behavioral precursors include gains in self-efficacy and reduction of per­ceived barriers. For new managers, perceptions of barriers to effective leadership can be powerful in influencing behavior. Hence, a large part of the training is spent on building skill in overcoming leadership barriers, as well as building intention to increase positive change activity. The assessment is one of two online, anony­mous surveys administered to all graduates (we believe this follow-up intervention reinforces the importance of desired behavior transfer). The 40 percent response rate from the first wave of alumni (637 students who completed course work in 1999) was satisfying, and the data were examined for response pattern match to other assessments to confirm the representativeness of the respondent group.

Level IV: Business Impact

Business impact attributable to training was measured in the same survey used for level III measurement. These include the extent to which students have become better leaders, the extent to which their teams have been positively affected, and types of impact on business results (such as impacts on people, teamwork, and morale; productivity and effectiveness; and customer and financial indicators). Large-scale leadership effectiveness was measured as well.

The Employee Research group conducts a global opinion survey each year in which many items critical to the corporation are measured. Recently a detailed analysis investigated the connection between leadership and the key corporate

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measurement of customer satisfaction. This piece of research was examined for high-level leadership trends and linkage to important business outcomes. These results are widely distributed and strategically used across the corporation, so our quest to iso­late training effects is confounded. For evaluation purposes, the research is important nonetheless because we believe that using multiple measures representing a variety of depth and specificity of impact can help to triangulate global training effects.

Level V: Return on Investment

Most easily measured was the cost efficiency achieved using an e-learning approach over classroom-only delivery. Cost of development returns and learner efficiencies have been quantified and tracked since the inception of the program. More diffi­cult is the measurement of the ultimate success of training: the extent to which it has a noticeable impact on business success. The bottom-line impact of leadership train­ing on business operations is notoriously hard to measure, but we endeavored using a chains of impact approach, following the trail of training effects down two paths: (1) cost avoidance and savings and (2) results enhancement. For example, tangible cost savings from cost of discrimination and harassment lawsuit avoidance are estimated by comparing internal legal action rates with other top-tier corporation rates. In ad­dition to savings, we measured return on investment (ROI) by results enhancements, such as manager estimation of business impact due to leadership improvements.

The Results

The Basic Blue for Managers intervention achieved positive effects at each Kirkpatrick level.

Level I: Reaction

All three satisfaction instruments yielded high participant satisfaction with both content and modes of delivery. The Harvard Business School professor's findings {JV = 520) indicated:

The company made significant strides in selecting learning modalities that are most appropriate to the learning situation, and implementing those modalities in an effective fashion. . . . The student interview results revealed unequivocal enthusiasm for [the company's] implementation of both the online and classroom components of the program . . . [and that the company] has appeared to recognize that when implemented appropriately, learning modalities can be synergistic, rather than competing.

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The internally conducted student survey showed that certain modules, such as coaching and climate, consistently receive the most positive scores. Summary ratings (a five-point scale, with 1 the highest score) for overall satisfaction had a mean of 1.16; "lessons learned were useful" had a mean of 1.06; the "overall experience was valuable" had 100 percent yes; and "recommend program to others" was 100 percent yes.

Level II: Learning

The program's second goal was that attainment of level II (knowledge gain) would be greater than the previous classroom-only new-manager intervention. On the fif­teen knowledge mastery tests, slightly over 96 percent of the sixty-six hundred par­ticipants to date have achieved mastery in all fifteen subject areas, and these students attained an average of 92 percent mastery on the 220 online-delivered knowledge items. Moreover, five times as much content is covered in the new year-long process than in the previous five-day new managers' classroom program. Use of the e-learn-ing architecture is regularly monitored. Based on a student population of three thou­sand students per year, nearly 500,000 intranet Web page requests per year signifies an average of approximately 150 page requests per year per student. Since the pro­gram's inception, there have been 2.3 million page requests.

Level III: Transfer

Based on the alumni survey, significant behavior change occurred as a direct re­sult of training, with the largest behavior changes in the content areas most heav­ily emphasized in training: coaching, competencies, styles, and climate. Samples of the most powerful findings on a five-point scale of degree of change, with 1 representing the greatest degree of change, are straight talk (mean = 1.82), coach­ing as a competency (1.9), teamwork (1.92), active listening (1.94), using the in­tranet to increase leadership knowledge (1.96), team leadership (1.97), and coaching as a managerial style (1.97). These results match facilitator observations of degree of behavior change throughout the course. Furthermore, they demon­strate that the overall goals for themes of behavior change are being met.

Self-efficacy items also showed outstanding results: the graduates believe they can make a difference and they are still enthusiastic eight to nine months after completion of the course; the impact has staying power. The most powerful re­sults are "confidence in ability to be an effective leader" (1.75), representing the biggest change found in the survey; belief that "positive changes in team are within my control" (1.87); "increased knowledge of leadership capabilities and needs" (1.93); and belief that I can make a positive impact on climate" (1.95). The greatest

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barrier reduction was found for lack of understanding of how to resolve "people" issues (2.31) and difficulty in leading remote employees (2.62).

Level IV: Business Impact

Self-reports on observable changes in leadership behavior and impact on the busi­ness were also uniformly positive. Regarding "overall effect of the training on their leadership," 8 percent of managers reported "extraordinary improvement"; 50 per­cent reported "large amount of improvement"; and 41 percent reported "some im­provement." Most frequently selected types of impact on subordinate teams that resulted directly from leadership improvement were development of the group as a team (71 percent), increased focus on strategy and goals (68 percent), morale im­provement and empowerment of staff (both 65 percent), stronger relationships among teams (53 percent), and increased productivity (50 percent).

To further establish the relationship between behavior change and business impact, eleven indexes were created from the key behavior topics and then cor­related with the measures of business impact. The strongest correlation (or "pre­diction" of impact) was found between behaviors regarding changing organizational climate and impact (correlation = .41, indicating a high degree of relationship, statistically significant at the^ < .0001 level), and leadership com­petency behavior and impact (correlation = .35, p < .0001). A factor analysis on eleven index variables yielded a three-factor solution, consisting of Impact on Business Measures, Impact on Strategic Outcomes, and Impact on Relation­ships. Impact on Business Measures correlates with many of the behavior change indexes, most notably self-efficacy (correlation = .ЪЪ,р — 0.0001) and manager­ial styles (correlation = .33, p = 0.0003).

We conclude that alumni perceive leadership improvements that relate to improvements in their business as a result of training. This finding is supported by results from the internal research study, which showed proof of linkage between leadership and customer satisfaction that were particularly compelling. A company-specific linkage model was created using structural equation modeling to demonstrate that leadership quality influences teamwork and, ultimately, cus­tomer satisfaction.

Level V: Return on Investment

Total financial cost including room and board, travel and infrastructure cost, not typically included in standard education industry accounting templates, is calculated by estimating per student cost for 128 hours of learning. Given the $8,708 cost per student for program completion, our estimated delivery ROI is 17 to 1. (The ROI is based on the total cost of creating and deploying a module

Blending Learning for Business Impact 71

and the tangible cost benefits based on the use over the past eighteen months.) Reuse of the e-learning methodology, using content object templates or simula­tion templates, is another source of savings.

In the survey, we asked graduates to assess the first-year annual impact, in dollars, that the leadership change due to training has had on their departments. The average direct impact value that managers placed on department improve­ment was $415,000. This leads to an ROI of 47 to 1.

Correlates of impact on revenues were based on responses from graduates (JV = 121), and impact on financial indicators was predicted by key behavior change indexes. Improvement in the areas in Table 5.1 predicted impact on financial indicators.

Together these analyses led to the conclusion that students perceive real and lasting leadership improvements directly linked to the training, which drive observable and financial value for their business.

Impact of This Learning Practice on the Organization

In making the content available to all managers worldwide over the company Internet, we have contributed to establishing a greater consistency of language, knowledge, and company culture across the globe than previously when different

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geographies developed and deployed their own separate programs for new managers.

The early success of this practice has sparked interest and enthusiasm across other parts of the company to use a similar blended approach for other company professions. Not only do all business units plan their development based on the blended four-tiered learning approach, but because the templates are reusable, they are being adapted for content beyond management development. The cus­tomization of Lotus LearningSpace to students' needs—for example, to provide a progress view for each student and an aggregate progress tracking map for administrators—and the successful deployment for such a huge number of stu­dents has helped inform and improve subsequent LearningSpace endeavors within the company.

There are other selected impacts of the new process as well:

• Adaptation of common nomenclature and conceptual models. Prior to the practice, different organizational functions and geographies used different terms and con­cepts to describe the work of managers. For example, seven dissimilar change mod­els were used within the company. That has now been replaced with one commonly agreed-on model. Common approaches and ideas have subsequently fostered more cross-functional understanding and teamwork.

• Online workplace behavior evaluations. Online 360-degree survey instruments with input from direct reports and peers on managerial styles, leadership com­petencies, and organizational climate are now used over the intranet to measure the behaviors exhibited by participants.

• Participants now develop an organizational action plan aimed at measurable improve­ments in the business. Completion of the program is dependent on the new manager's sign-off that real workplace behaviors have changed, as evidenced by completion of plan objectives. This new approach has been well received.

• Rip and read requests. Participants can use the print version of online learn­ing modules to retain the content in hard copy for later use. Nearly 50 percent of 896,000 annual site hits are print requests. This suggests that managers are using the material while traveling and in places where online access is unavailable.

All of these impacts are believed to be long term, as this e-learning approach has been increasingly accepted throughout our company.

Lessons Learned '

IBM learning developers gained insight into effective e-learning design from third-party evaluations of Basic Blue for Managers. Most notably IBM learned:

Blending Learning for Business Impact

73

• Learning preferences are poor predictors of e-learning acceptance. Harvard Busi­ness School professor Youngme Moon's studies (1999, 2000) reveal it is difficult for preintervention students to express accurately their preference for a particular learning modality (e-learning) because their range of classroom experiences far exceeds that of online learning. E-learning should thus be viewed as an innova­tion with attributes unclear to its users. With this approach, we used the findings of nearly fifty years of "diffusion of innovations" research (Rogers, 1995) to inform our design and deployment.

• The relative advantage of e-learning must be salient and promoted. The degree to which the innovation is perceived as better than existing alternatives is the primary driver of its use. With our students, online learning is anytime, anyplace access, and it has the advantage of being able to focus learners on a specific skill or in­formation module desired instead of having to sit through an entire class program covering a broader set of skills or wade through a larger body of information.

• The compatibility of e-learning with existing tools, navigation, and usability is impor­tant to students. Any learning design features inducing students to regard the inno­vation as familiar increases satisfaction and speeds its adoption. For instance, if online applications are consistent with familiar interfaces and navigation, such as their e-mail, learners feel more comfortable adopting the new learning technology (Moon, 2000).

• The simplicity of an e-learning application, as perceived by its potential adopters, will speed its rate of adoption. Conversely, perceived complexity of installing "plug-ins," commonly required for various online learning programs, is one example of how complexity slows adoption of online learning. Thus, we designed and built everything with a simple "point-and-click" mentality.

• Trialability, or the degree to which e-learning can be experimented with on a limited basis, helps dispel uncertainty and drives its adoption. Deploying e-learning features with "no risk to try" helped speed adoption. All simulators, online cases, and Web pages are neither tracked nor password required, so users could try them—and make mistakes—without feeling they were being watched. Trialability appears to be especially critical for earlier adopters, who have no precedent to follow when they adopt, unlike later adopters, who may be surrounded by peers whom they can observe and experience via "vicarious trialability."

• "Observability," or the degree to which the innovation's results are visible to others, speeds the innovation's adoption. Some effects of e-learning are more immediate and easier to see, and these help drive future usage. For example, we learned that building and im­plementing observable and practical management skills content that can be used im­mediately by the student helps whet appetites for more e-learning. So we made these available first. Such immediate-skill gains are more quickly observed than other lead­ership skills, which typically have long-term accrued effects. These immediately per­ceived benefits help promote continued adoption of the e-learning approach.

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Moon (1999, 2000) assessed IBM managers' responses to the Basic Blue ex­periences and found that users universally extolled both learning modalities— classroom and online—without reservation and with equal enthusiasm. All respondents reported in interviews that they preferred learning the informational material (phase I, cognitive-based development) online from their own home or office rather than in a classroom setting. Representative comments from interviewees include:

"Because the information was the type of stuff I could learn on my own, there was really no reason for it to be communicated in a classroom. I think I would have been resentful if it had been dumped on me in a classroom. We're no dummies . . . we can learn this kind of stuff on our own."

"The key thing was the hybrid model. Rather than adopting a totally online training program or a totally in-classroom training program, they decided to take a best-of-both-worlds approach, and it really worked." "Neither phase could have worked without the other. Phase I set up phase II really nicely, and phase II would have been impossible to pull off if we hadn't done the prep work in phase I."

"It's too much information to be taught in a classroom format. You need to be able to sift through this stuff from the comfort of your own home, at your own pace."

"There's no question that the ability to work at home or in my office made some material easier. . . . This was a huge advantage."

It is clear that technologies and frameworks for learning have delivered much more value to IBM as an organization than just cost savings. These innovations and productivity that have come about as a result of the blended learning pro­grams have enabled IBM to be more responsive to changing business demands, develop deeper relationships within and across the extended enterprise, and de­liver financial results. We have no doubt that in the future, learning will become a competitive differentiator separating those organizations that are merely surviving from those that are leaders in the knowledge economy.

References

Kirkpatrick, D. L, (1979). Techniques for evaluating training programs. Training and

Development Journal, 33(6), 78-92. Kirkpatrick, D. L (1998). Evaluating training programs: The four levels (2nd ed.). San Francisco:

Berrett-Koehler.

CHAPTER SIX

A LEARNING ECOLOGY MODEL FOR BLENDED LEARNING FROM SUN MICROSYSTEMS

Mike S. Wenger, Chuck Ferguson

Sun Microsystems is a worldwide provider of information technology (IT) infrastructure solutions and services. To support worldwide customer needs. Sun offers several hundred training solutions in a wide variety of delivery options. More than 250,000 students per year participate in Sun's Web-based courses or in classroom instruction at over 250 authorized training centers in more than 60 countries. A large portion of Sun's instructional content is localized into nine languages.

Why a Learning Ecology?

Since 2000, Sun has used an ecology framework to guide the design and deployment of blended learning solutions in the global corporate IT training market. We find John Seely Brown's (2000) description useful: "An ecology is basically an open, complex, adaptive system comprising elements that are dy­namic and interdependent. One of the things that makes an ecology so powerful and adaptable to new contexts is its diversity" (p. 19). It is this ability to bring coherence and simplicity to an ever changing diversity of new possibilities for technology application that is so valuable.

From the start, we found the classroom and e-learning conception of blended learning severely lacking. For us, such a conception diverted attention from the

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A Learning Ecology Model for Blended Learning from Sun Microsystems 77

observable fact that a well-designed physical classroom already is a rich blend of many different learning modalities. Furthermore, perpetuating the catch-all label e-learning tends to gloss over all the exciting potential that the Internet offers. In our work, we needed to articulate exactly what brings the full richness to a class­room experience, understand what the emerging technologies could add to the equation, and describe how we could bring everything together in a way that sup­ported what we knew about adult learning theory. In short, we needed a model that would help us express coherence in the multimode whole yet not be over­whelmed by the endless stream of apparently disconnected parts. This was the genesis of our learning ecology framework.

To set the stage properly for a discussion of the learning ecology, two of our original concerns require further detail. First, the gross label e-learning shortchanged the rich potential diversity of online learning modalities. The Internet enables modes ranging from simple content delivery to global communities of practice; from simulations to real-time work flow performance support; from instructor-mediated experience to learner-initiated research activities. It did not require great foresight to realize that the industry would outgrow page-turning HTML pre­sentations fairly quickly. It seemed to us that lumping all online learning into one conceptual bucket is as wrong as treating every learning experience in a class­room-based course as the same. Second, it was also clear to us that such a restricted definition of blended learning underestimated the extent to which the Internet would become a part of traditional classroom training.

In those early days, many people saw classroom and e-learning as distinct and often competing ways to approach education. However, this seemed to us to be a temporary conception reflecting several factors at the time, including the relatively limited familiarity with the Internet, generally bad previous ex­periences with computer-based training, and few good tools and content avail­able for online options. As more people came to understand the Internet as a communications medium as well as a presentation medium, we believed that its use would pervade traditional classrooms. Certainly this has come to pass. While it is possible to conceive of purely online training experiences, it is in­creasingly difficult to envision a purely classroom experience. Instructors use network technologies to enhance their face-to-face classes in myriad ways: the use of online course registration, posted syllabi, online chats, e-mail connec­tions with students, and reference materials online are increasingly the norm. Although face-to-face classes remain a mainstay in the corporate world, it is dif­ficult to find companies (even very small ones) that do not use the Internet in some way to support employee learning and knowledge needs. If all learning experiences are in this sense blended, then the term loses distinction. What is not blended learning?

78 The Handbook of Blended Learning

Ultimately we needed to be able to design, create, deploy, and sell IT training offerings to our worldwide customer set. We needed to examine all the emerging potential components of a training offer and understand how they might fit together in a coherent whole. We needed to create a vocabulary so the multiple actors in our corporate production chain could effectively communicate. And we needed to help our customers navigate an increasingly complicated set of only partially understood possibilities. In short, we needed more finely grained detail than classroom or e-learning provided.

For these reasons, we rapidly embraced the more textured notion of a learn­ing ecology. That is, we developed a simple framework onto which we could map then current possibilities as well as new possibilities emerging from new tech­nologies or learning designs. The biggest advantage in an ecology model is that it enables a stable view of the totality but also accommodates a constantly changing set of components. This approach solves a practical business problem. Individual products have increasingly short life cycles, but big powerful new ideas require consistent expression over years before they take root. An ecology model allows us to capture the subtlety and sophistication of adult learning theory yet express ourselves in simple, practical terms that communicate effectively with our con­stituents in the corporation.

We believe that our learning ecology framework could apply in university or K-12 settings as well as the corporate world. However, our specific intent and our experience have remained completely in the realm of workplace learning, and that colors our presentation. In the workplace, employees participate in learning to assume a new role in the organization or to maintain their competency in an ex­isting role. Role specifications define the knowledge, skills, and performance that employees must accomplish to demonstrate proficiency in a new role. Content or experience that supports the role acquisition populates the overall learning ecol­ogy. Thus, we presuppose an overarching value set, workplace performance, that provides both design and navigation choices for all who participate in the ecology.

Our model must not merely cope with a sophisticated set of learning theory issues; it must also cope with a sophisticated set of business issues. The business requirement is easily stated (though notoriously difficult to mea­sure) as return on investment (ROI). There is a constant pressure for lower costs and more effectiveness. In other words, any training or knowledge project must be effective, and it must operate within a budget. The components that con­stitute the learning ecology must be justifiable relative to specific learning out­comes and development costs. So the learning ecology must also provide a framework for business analysis and decision making, as well as learning effectiveness analysis.

A Learning Ecology Model for Blended Learning from Sun Microsystems 79

Background to the Learning Ecology Framework

Here, we list a few of the more important background ideas that have guided our thinking.

Quality of Learning Experience

Quality of both components and the whole learning experience is critical, and there are many aspects of quality mat are not direcdy articulated in the learning ecology Much training is badly designed, poorly timed, disconnected from business needs, or presented to the wrong audience. And even in courses that are excellent overall, some parts may be weak. These are significant issues of design, and although the learn­ing ecology provides sufficient granularity to match learning modalities with specific design outcomes, it does not address these issues. Designing the blend of components is not the same as creating high-quality standardized components or ensuring that die blend is presented in a favorable workplace context.

Control over Learning Experience

In classroom training, designers tend to overestimate their control over the learn­ing experience. Instructional designers, content creators, and subject matter ex­perts often fall into the trap that the course they design is the course that is delivered and the course that is experienced. The reality is that traditional class­room training is a craft where the instructor takes the building blocks (only some of which are supplied by the course designers) and brings together a whole learn­ing experience. The instructor provides a field of possibilities; the learner engages that potential. The learner and the instructor collaborate, implicitly or explicitly, to bring all the building blocks together for a (more or less) effective learning ex­perience. Both partners are presumed to be expert in traditional classroom train­ing (we recognize that this is not always true, even if it is frequently presumed), so minimal explicit discussion about the teacher's role and the student's role in con­structing the overall learning experience is expressed. But with new and unfa-muiar learning modalities, the roles of the participants must be part of the design discussion. A learning ecology model must invite an ongoing discussion about learning to learn (and teach) in new ways.

Formal versus Informal Learning

Formal learning is a small percentage of workplace learning. The reality is that most learning in the workplace (perhaps in all life) derives from informal

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experiences and self-engagement. Although we talk mostly about things like ROI, courses and catalogues, training budgets, explicit projects, and trade-offs between classroom and work time, these investments are only the tip of the learning ice­berg. Adults on the job enhance their performance through an entire spectrum of self-study informal mentoring, asking friends, listening to their boss, and now and again sitting through some formal training. An ecology model must potentially connect to the total system of learning, formal and informal, in a company.

Social Nature of Learning

Learning is a social process (Brown & Duguid, 2000). In 1999, many people thought of e-learning primarily in terms of asynchronous content delivery and consequendy assumed that a traditional classroom experience was required for any social aspects of learning. This is not true. The reality is that the Internet opens up new vistas for social interaction. In many industries (ours especially), the Internet is a primary mode of social intercourse that can take advantage of global social networks. Furmermore, we have experienced face-to-face classrooms that had essentially no social dimension. The learning ecology recognizes that, depending on the desired outcome, social con­nection is often needed for effective learning. However, we do not assume ,that the only (or even best) way to achieve social connection is in face-to-face classrooms.

Cost-Effectiveness

Cost is a significant issue in any corporate training discussion. Cost is also a com­plex issue, particularly in emerging technologies. Initial infrastructure invest­ment is high, yet once the investment is made, the additional variable cost for new users tends to be lower. Cost of content remains high, but with new tools and tech­niques and more extensive content repositories, multipurpose use can be increased, thereby lowering costs for additional applications. Conditions such as these mean that detailed cost analysis must usually be done on a project-by-project basis. We can simplify this concept by saying that in general, when applying the learning ecology, we try to combine parts to achieve the overall learning outcome from the whole at a minimum total cost.

Learning Ecology Framework

A learning ecology requires a unifying model of instructional theory that drives the architecture of such a learning environment. The matrix presented in Figure 6.1 forms the foundation of a design model we have developed to enable our holistic learning ecology environment.

A Learning Ecology Model for Blended Learning from Sun Microsystems 81

_v In this matrix, the x-axis illustrates a focus on the delivery of instruction. The left end of the л-axis targets delivery of instructional content. Content includes factual information delivered in a variety of methods. Some delivery methods are documentation, a lecture, demonstration of a procedure, a job aid, or a guided discussion. The right end of the x-axis targets delivery of instructional experiences through activities such as hands-on lab exercises, case studies, collaborative team activities, and coached problem-solving activities.

Thej-axis in the matrix illustrates who controls the navigation of the learn­ing process. At the bottom of the j-axis, navigation of the learning process is con­trolled by a guide, traditionally a teacher or facilitator. The guide makes decisions on the selection and delivery of information and learning events to the student. As new technologies mature, varieties of machine-based agents or intelligent tu­toring systems will begin to fulfill this guiding role. At the top of thej-axis, navi­gation of the learning process is controlled by the learner. Self-directed learners own the responsibHity for identifying their learning needs and implementing their unique learning paths. In this environment, students actively locate, select, and initiate their learning from various information sources and activities.

Taking this matrix a step further, we arrive at the four general families of learning modalities that comprise potential parts of a learning ecology:

The Handbook of Blended Learning FIGURE 6.2. GENERAL LEARNING MODALITIES.

Learner Self-Navigation

Studying

Practicing

Content Delivery Focus

Experience and Practice Focus

Teaching

Coaching