Modelling blended solutions for higher education: teaching, learning, and assessment in the network and mobile technology era

The article addresses the role of network and mobile technologies in enhancing blended solutions with a view to (a) enriching the teaching/learning processes, (b) exploiting the opportunities it offers for their observability, and hence for their monitoring and formative/summative assessment. It will also discuss how such potential can only be captured by solidly integrating the process of instructional design with that of monitoring and assessment. First, the article presents the proposed conception of blended solutions, giving examples. In the second part, the article discusses a possible breakdown of blended solutions into its various components and how these can enrich both the teaching/learning and the assessment processes. Finally, it addresses the question of how to combine and/or use singly the various components of blended solutions. To conclude, implications for the implementation of blended solutions are discussed, also in relation to emerging contexts such as Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs).