"I am very impressed with all aspects of what RIT provides for an online learning environment," says Anthony Picciano, author of four books on education and technology and professor in the Education Administration and Supervision Program in the School of Education at Hunter College – CUNY.

Picciano recently visited the RIT campus as part of a lecture series hosted by RIT’s Online Learning Department. He gave two presentations on the subject of "blended learning" and distance education to RIT faculty.

"It’s a credit to RIT’s Online Learning Department that they provide support services routinely to their faculty," Picciano adds. "For example, a lot of colleges and universities have not invested in the kind of audio and visual support that’s provided at RIT."

Picciano also refers to RIT as one of the "early adopters" in the field of distance education in the country that "took a chance and developed Web-based courses" as far back as the early 90s. He adds that a second phase of such technology-in-education adoption, happening at RIT and occurring nationwide at many colleges and universities, is the development of blended learning experiences, which are a combination of face-to-face and technology-enhanced learning.

RIT’s Online Learning Department is currently spearheading an effort to enhance curriculums with online educational technology on a campus-wide scale by investing in new technologies and assisting RIT faculty with the adoption of a variety of Web and digital-based tools that help to create blended learning environments. Such tools, according to Picciano, bring many benefits to the learning and teaching experience. "Critical analysis, reflective practice, case-study methodology, collaborative learning, the Socratic method – all of these techniques translate very nicely to the online environment," Picciano says.

For example, communicating by writing in an asynchronous online learning environment via e-mail or threaded discussion constitutes a reflective activity much less constrained by time than oral spontaneity and discussion in a typical face-to-face classroom. "What students give to an instructor [in an online class] is a much clearer representation of what they are thinking than if they were to say something similar at the moment in a face-to-face class," Picciano says.

Another excellent place where blended learning can be applied is in the large lecture hall class that students frequently attend in early liberal arts and sciences core-requirement courses. In this face-to-face learning environment several hundred students may attend a 2-hour lecture given by a professor in an auditorium setting. Then typically a day or two later, smaller one-hour supplementary classes of 25 to 30 students are held and hosted by graduate assistants for asking questions and class discussion related to the previously held 2-hour lecture. "I would take that one hour and put it online immediately," says Picciano. "There is no reason why the student should have to wait. Pedagogically, the third hour, where you have the opportunity to interact and ask questions, would be much better online, and I would argue that it is at least comparable to if not better than going face-to-face."

Classrooms where critical analysis plays an important role are also ideal for blended learning. By taking students’ critiques of literature, art and/or theatre, for example, to an online discussion board, faculty can facilitate ongoing discussions over days and weeks.

"There are lots of examples in the blended learning environment where you can say you are comfortable doing something face-to-face and you know it works, but you can also look at parts of it that can be moved into the online environment," Picciano says.

This growing movement by faculty across the country to segment various parts of their classroom activities to an online environment has "enabled people that are not the most technically proficient to take small steps rather than a big leap into Web-based learning," Picciano continues. "I also think that today’s course management system software efficiently enables people with a basic technology understanding to easily move forward and put up significant amounts of course content on the Web. Because these course management systems have all kinds of great tools, faculty can concentrate on the content of the class rather than the software."

Assessment is another area where blended learning can make a difference. Picciano explains that today there is a greater demand for educators, in general at all levels, to provide greater accountability concerning learning goals. Formal assessment techniques such as testing, exams, written assignments and research papers, as well as gauging how much a student contributes to a class discussion or team project can all be facilitated in the online learning environment and be accurately recorded.

For instance, Picciano points to curriculums in teacher education as a good example of where "there has been a great demand either on the part of accrediting agencies or state education departments to show that your program is in fact generating bona-fide high quality teachers." He also mentions that accreditation agencies are beginning to make stronger recommendations throughout higher education relating to faculty taking a closer look at the nature of their assessment techniques and strategies. "They [accrediting agencies] are not putting the onus on the administration to do assessment. They are basically saying that the administration provide the tools and the overall direction to do assessment, but it is really up to the faculty to do authentic assessment and determine whether or not students are meeting the goals and objectives of their courses."

Finally, Picciano takes a look at the future of online learning, saying that higher education is entering a new stage of development that is being generated by the increasing use of blended learning techniques overall. "I think in another four or five years we are going to see another rapid deployment of distance learning as a lot of these people who are doing the blended stuff are going to move into a fully online environment."