The blended approach behind BITE initiative for promoting the use of technologies in learning and teaching enhancement in higher education

Roy Kam and Josie Csete
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hong Kong SAR, China

The potential of technologies in learning and teaching is widely recognized among universities around the world. However, universities integrate technologies into teachers’ instruction and students’ learning to varying degrees depending on their strategic focus on the use of technologies in support of education. Zemsky and Massy (2004) have proposed a possible ‘Technology’s S-curve’, which is helpful for understanding at what stage universities integrate technologies into learning and teaching. The S-curve comprises four cycles, with the last cycle -- New Course/ Program Configurations ‘which result when faculty and their institutions re-engineer teaching and learning activities to take full and optimal advantage of the new technology’ (Zemsky and Massy 2004, 17) -- being the stage most universities are still working towards.

Promoting and supporting the use of technologies for enhancing learning and teaching is one of the objectives of the Educational Development Centre of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPU). As the very nature of educational development is about ‘the development of teaching and learning quality at different levels (i.e. individual, departmental, faculty and institutional) within a higher education institution’ (Laksov 2008, 91), technologies are strategically perceived as one of the means to help achieve such a goal. Like many universities (Weurlander and Stenfors-Hayes 2008), the educational development activities here are predominately in the form of face-to-face delivery, such as staff development courses/workshops; and the same holds true for those activities regarding technologies supporting learning and teaching. However, based on the Centre’s record of attendees’ enrolment and their post-activities feedback surveys, it is not uncommon to find that: the penetration of these activities is limited in terms of attracting academic staff across different departments; staff may not be able to attend because of time-clashes with other commitments; and staff look for course/workshop materials that are more widely accessible if they cannot attend in person. All these frame the focus of this paper, which is to give an account of how an evolutionary approach to blended learning has been designed and implemented to promote the use of technologies for learning and teaching enhancement at the HKPU. The sample series of activities to which an evolutionary approach to blended learning was applied is called the ‘BITE’ (Bite-sized Information for Teaching with E-technologies) Initiative, which includes both online resources and offline workshops to help academic staff to become acquainted with emerging technologies for educational use in a quick and efficient way. Since the work is still in progress, a complete evaluation of this initiative is not within the scope of this paper.

An evolutionary approach places blended learning in a much broader context. Blended learning can be seen as a learning process involving a combination of delivery methods; of pedagogical approaches with or without technologies; or of mixed forms of educational technologies. A consensus can be inferred from all its various workable interpretations that multiple modalities promote more effective learning. In essence, an evolutionary approach to blended learning is in line with this consensus. However, this approach to the design and implementation of blended learning is constantly informed by the best we know to date about the issues and challenges associated with totally technology-based learning and face-to-face learning. As practised in the ‘BITE Initiative’, its blend is not simply a combination of delivery methods to address the feedback from course/workshop attendees. Its blend reflects, for example, the intelligent use of off-the-shelf and custom-made materials; the division of bite-sized and elaborated information between appropriate delivery methods; the use of multiple delivery media for deeper learning; and flexibility regarding the modes of learning it supports. It is believed that by using an evolutionary approach, blended learning will be in a better position to respond to the perceived shortcomings of face-to-face learning and technology-based learning.