Crossmedia is the solution, but what is the problem? That an organization wants to send the same message through several media? I don’t think so. Getting rid of a message is never a problem. It’s like getting rid of garbage. There’s always a way to push it out.

The problem lays on the other side of the pipeline. People receive so many messages, via so many media and events that they’ll never focus their attention on one subject. And that may be a problem for an organization, because then all its communication-effort is wasted and merely garbage polluting (digital) environment.

Similarly the problem with Blended Learning (= crossmedia applied in the teaching process) is not that a lecturer wants to send his lesson through several media. There’s always a way to disseminate a lesson: in a classroom, via weblectures, via PowerPoints on intranet, via YouTube, via Twitter etc. The problem lays on the other side of the pipeline. Teaching is not about offering lessons, it is about helping students to learn and thus transform them into professionals.

Offering a lesson in a classroom and via other media belongs to an array of instruments that a lecturer has of his disposal. Instruments that can help to solve a problem. But what is the problem? The problem that he has to solve is how students can gain all the knowledge, attitudes and skills that are necessary for performing as a true professional. This is what we call ‘learning’. Learning is a slow process in the student’s brain. A lecturer – and a school – can help to give this process the direction that society demands.

The problem that Blended Learning can help to solve lays in the skull of students: it’s their brain. Their brain has to absorb knowledge, develop attitudes and develop skills. And the only way to enter their brain in order to change what they know, feel and are able to do is via their senses. That’s where a school needs media and events for – just like any organization who wants to influence its target group.

If we want to make the learning-process more effective and efficient, and if we want to make it more motivating for students, we will have to know more about the student’s brain. Consequently we can design a Blended Learning Environment that offers the right experience on the right moment for the right student. This Blended Learning Environment may be similar to a traditional classroom, enriched with some “new media”; but it could be something far beyond. Something we can’t imagine right now.

A traditional classroom belongs to traditional teaching. Often, traditional teaching is similar to a traditional industrial production process. A ‘teaching factory’ offers the same product to as many students as possible, preferably in the cheapest and easiest way. The ‘easiest way’ is easiest for the school, not necessarily easy for the students or the lecturers. Students and lecturers have to come to a classroom on a time that suits school best, not the student or lecturer. Time and space are limited by the size of the building and its opening hours.

Now, one of the great things of crossmedia is that it makes information less dependent on time and space. Welcome to the era of new opportunities for education!

Here schools may learn from the corporate world. In the beginning of the industrial age it was enough to produce goods because everything a factory produced was absorbed by the market. But now the consumer market is far beyond that traditional production stage. Producers do their best to deliver products and services as much tailor-made as possible. For example by applying mass-customization. But in many markets this is not enough, in these markets it is not about offering a product or a service, it is about the result of the combination of these offers: the experience or even the transformation of the user.

So, in the consumer market it is no longer enough to simply produce and offer a product or service. A company has to offer a package that is as much tailor-made for the consumer on a specific moment and on a specific time. This can result in a positive experience and in some cases may result in a transformation of the consumer. Then the consumer IS the product.

This is where schools can learn from the corporate world. A school should no longer be a teaching factory: an organization that offers standardized services. A school should become an organization that delivers tailor-made packages that result in positive experiences and in transformation of the student. The student IS the product of a school!

Society needs schools to transform people into professionals. That is why society should invest in schools. Invest in transformations, not in producing lessons.
It seems about time for schools to go beyond the traditional industrial production process and enter the era of experience and transformation. A school should change from a teaching factory into a transformation organization. A transformation-process takes time and a school can help to organize this process. In order to do so it will have to offer the right experiences on the right moments and places in order to develop the individual student ‘s brain.

A Blended Learning Environment makes it possible for students to learn where-ever they want, whenever they want. Instead of being forced to be present in a fixed room on a fixed time. This Blended Learning Environment should be designed in order to deliver experiences, develop brains and create transformations.

tagged with: blended learning; learning; experience; transformation; teaching factory; crossmedia.

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