Using Blended Learning to Support Community Development - Lessons Learnt from a Platform for Accessibility Experts

This article examines the process of collecting voices from a participatory community development perspective and the theoretical framework from which the process was facilitated. The focus of the study was on building a viable and good organization that is responsive to the needs of its primary stakeholders. This is the operationalization of the principle of empowerment of men and women alike â€“ aimed at enhancing the sustainability of the envisaged project beyond the time of the research-facilitatorâ€™s departure. Through this participatory community development process participants were enabled to start a Stokvel project, the aim of which was to help augment the membersâ€™ financial resources so as to sustain payment of their childrenâ€™s day care fees and to also materialize the spirit of Ubuntu (humaneness) among themselves as local community members. Given the lessons learnt this article concludes that after engaging people in capacity building as facilitators of participatory community development, it is important to give people a voice at grassroots level, allowing them to make informed decisions and choices about their situations. This in turn helps them take control of their lives in a meaningful way. Besides this, the researcher is also intrigued by the task of documenting the process of collecting the latter voices and the attendant lessons learnt.

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Co-creation, contexts, and complexity: a case study concerning blended learning.

The Journal of Educational Innovation Partnership and Change ◽

10.21100/jeipc.v4i1.649 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Dave Burnapp ◽

Rob Farmer ◽

Sam Vivian Hansen Reese ◽

Anthony Stepniak

Keyword(s):

Complex Systems ◽

Blended Learning ◽

Ethical Issues ◽

Learning Activities ◽

First Year ◽

Lessons Learnt ◽

Partnership Approach

This case study reports on the value of engaging students as partners in research carried out concerning module redesign, specifically the development of blended learning activities for a first-year module in linguistics. It should be noted that the focus of this report is on the partnership approach to researching, not the material redesign itself. The approach taken involves recognising universities as complex systems and, as such, needing to be researched with the voices of all stakeholders incorporated. The study supplies an exploration of the reasons for choosing this partnership approach; it gives a description of how this partnership was maintained (relating both to ethical issues and to practicalities); it summarises suggested guidance and lessons learnt, to be shared with others to encourage them to consider such partnerships.

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Designing Interactive Narratives for the Fashion System. MOOC and blended learning in a transdisciplinary design module

10.4995/head21.2021.12958 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Angelica Vandi ◽

Ilaria Mariani

Keyword(s):

Blended Learning ◽

Digital Media ◽

Design Education ◽

Data Science ◽

Learning Context ◽

Design Methodologies ◽

Interactive Narratives ◽

Lessons Learnt ◽

Fashion Designers

From distributed interactive narratives to games and playful systems, complex interactive projects challenge the fashion ecosystem introducing new possibilities that require innovative and transdisciplinary competencies to be adequately tackled. However, to properly deal with digital media, designers need to master their logic, potentialities, and implications. Therefore the urgency to include such knowledge in building, reframing, and implementing the curricula and design education of today's and tomorrow's fashion designers. This considers the complexity of getting acquainted and implementing vocabulary, design methodologies and practices from other fields of studies. This paper presents the lessons learnt from the first application of the MOOC “Data Science, Visualization and Interactive Narratives for CCIs” to an intensive design module in the Design for the Fashion System. Attention is posed on how it was included in a Blended Learning context to meet the scope and answer previously identified criticalities as providing knowledge from neighbouring fields, and to what extent it succeeded.

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