You likely have heard of a number of terms to refer to different types of modality – and the number of terms are ever expanding:<\/p>\n
Face-to-face (F2F), blended, hybrid, flipped, e-learning, online, distributed, distance learning, virtual learning, remote teaching, multi-access, hyflex, blended synchronous, synchronous hybrid, asynchronous, bisynchronous, …. and so much more. What do they mean? How do they differ?<\/p>\n
The one thing they have in common is that they all have to do with modality in education. Modality refers to how we communicate in terms of timing<\/strong><\/em> and location<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n Face-to-face<\/strong> refers to classes that are on campus\/in school. The timing is typically synchronous because everyone is engaged in a live conversation.<\/p>\n Blended<\/strong> or hybrid<\/strong> emerged and typically referred to the consecutive mixing on face-to-face portions and online portions.<\/p>\n Tech-enabled or tech-integrated<\/strong> is often used to refer to a face-to-face class that has technology embedded in some way, but often not reducing “instructional hours” to do so.<\/p>\n Online learning<\/strong> used to be synonymous with asynchronous learning, which means not<\/strong><\/em> “live” or happening at the same time, but as the internet speeds increased and the computers\/laptops became more advanced, online started to mix asynchronous<\/strong><\/em> (forums, emails, blogs, etc.) with synchronous<\/em> <\/strong>learning, which means happening live or at the same time, such as video conferencing. Other words commonly used for online learning include e-learning, distributed learning, distance education, etc.<\/p>\n As software and hardware became even more advanced, entire classrooms became video-enabled, allowing remote learners to come together synchronously (live) – thus MERGING face-to-face learners with online (remote) learners. Because blended refers to consecutive face-to-face and online modalities, new terms emerged to brand the merging of modes. Blended synchronous<\/strong> and synchronous hybrid<\/strong> refer to the synchronous merging of remote learners and F2F learners. Multi-access learning<\/strong> is a broader framework that includes F2F, online synchronous, online asynchronous, and also considers open access to include open learners (the public) for access to resources and\/or discourse. HyFlex<\/strong> emerged to capture designs that allowed the learners to entirely choose their modality, which may be the same for some multi-access courses, many courses have designs which require participation in some components (e.g., a F2F required time at the beginning of the term and end, required participation in synchronous time (F2F or online), etc.).<\/p>\n Dr. Valerie Irvine released a Landscape on Merging Modalities<\/a> article on October 25 in EDUCAUSE Review to help understand the terminology. It is recommended reading for learning more about the terminology above.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You likely have heard of a number of terms to refer to different types of modality – and the number of terms are ever expanding: Face-to-face (F2F), blended, hybrid, flipped, e-learning, online, distributed, distance learning, virtual learning, remote teaching, multi-access,… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collaboration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci136\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci136\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci136\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci136\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci136\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1258"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci136\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5065,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci136\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions\/5065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci136\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci136\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci136\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edtechuvic.ca\/edci136\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}