ИСТИНА

Moderator of the Section/The paper describes the experience of transforming a university lecture course in British Area Studies by the integration of ICT: traditional F2F classroom learning is blended with online learning at a distance. Blended learning provides an easy access for students to abundant thoughtfully selected and thematically structured online resourses any time it suits them, being truly student-centered. It makes them analytically work with information, which contributes to the development of their critical thinking and information competence. The blended format enriches the overall learning environment of the course by adding a virtual learning environment (VLE), in our case, created on Wikispaces.com. Students are supposed to work regularly ("indiscretely") in the VLE in between the F2F lectures, performing tasks designed by the teacher. Their self-study is constantly "seen", controlled and monitored by the teacher. The two modes of learning become intertwined, inseparable and co-dependant, they make a real "blend". The structure of the VLE, types of learning activities and pedagogical techniques applied are discussed. The results attesting to the efficacy of blended learning are summed up.