The role of structure, patterns, and people in blended learning

Recently, much e-learning research has been devoted to producing e-content, describing it with metadata, and to constructing e-learning systems. Considerably less attention has been paid to integrating technology to improve the learning process in terms of depth and scope. In this paper, that gap is filled by considering learning support from a technological as well as from a socio-psychological perspective. Didactically, well-proven educational principles from the Person-Centered Approach are adopted to drive educational processes. Technically, a layered framework for deriving Web-based support from these educational principles is proposed. The study focuses on the contribution of visual modeling of blended learning scenarios, on their semi-formal description as patterns, and on the use of patterns as sources for user-centered Web support modules. The experiences and evaluations of one major academic course on Web Engineering indicate that blended learning has added value only when facilitated by educators with high interpersonal skills, and accompanied by reliable, easy-to-use technology.