On Designing Blended Learning Environments for Resource-Challenged Communities

The growth of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) adop-tion in emerging economies and more broadly Resource-Challenged Com-munities (RCC) motivates the exploration of Blended Learning (BL), a learning mode that mixes face-to-face and technology-mediated instruction. BL has the potential of broadening accessibility to quality learning anytime and anywhere. This article contributes a theoretical perspective for design-ing BL environments in RCC. It synthesizes findings from BL literature and lessons distilled from iconic educational technology projects in RCC to envision a pathway forward that consists of three design heuristics to ad-dress that the contextual challenges in RCC: localizing the problem, em-bracing the complex and nuanced use of technology, and balancing autono-my and scaffolding to support students.