STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS OF ONLINE TOOLS IN THE TRANSITION TO BLENDED LEARNING

Online and/or blended methods of course delivery are gaining more popularity in almost all academic areas in higher education today. Rapid advances in information and computer technology have led to the development of an extensive range of choices for online tools. Consideration of the course academic area and the learner characteristics of such a course may jointly influence the choice of the mix of online tools that will best facilitate learning, and promote continuous learner engagement with course material in the planned delivery mode. This paper describes a preliminary comparative study on undergraduate student perceptions of the online tools made available through the institutional learning management system in a Science course and a Statistics course, initial results from the piloted participants include indications of positive-engagement of science learners with online quizzes, blogs, discussion boards and flipped classroom activities and of statistics learners with online instructor PowerPoint lectures, online. formative problem assignments and the online e-book. The instructors' perspective on the aim of the online tools used, their effectiveness and challenges in relation to student learning and student engagement is also presented. Future study will look into extending the work to include other courses and obtain empirical. support for the development of a framework to use as best practice guideline in the choice of online tools to transition to blended and/or online courses in these academic areas.