Applying a blended learning strategy for software engineering education

With the rapid rate of innovation in software engineering, teaching and learning of new technologies have become challenging issues. The provision of appropriate education is a key prerequisite for benefiting from new technologies. Experience shows that typical classroom education is not as effective and efficient as it could be, therefore, e-learning approaches are becoming more and more popular. However, typical e-learning suffers from a lack of social communication and control over the progress of learning. This paper describes a blended learning approach based on industrial and academic experience in the area of object technology, which mixes traditional classroom education with e-learning. Although both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, the synergy effects clearly outperform the isolated benefits of the single approaches on business, content, and quality level.