THE INTEREST FOR THE EXPRESSIONS IN BRAZIL AND ABROAD

On the Google Trends platform, forums conducted searches for the expressions in English Blended Learning, Remote Learning, Hybrid Learning and, in Portuguese, Ensino Remoto, Ensino Híbrido and Semipresencial related to the year 2020. It was possible to identify that there is a preference for the use of a term about other regions or countries, as it is possible to visualize our maps generated by the platform and reproduced below. In that year, also that arises or is interested in the expression of Ensino Remoto, among others already known.

In Figure 1, it is possible to verify that the term Remote Learning predominates in the USA, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and China. Besides the expression Blended Learning leads in most of the Asian territory and Europe, in addition to several African countries, while Semipresencial is located in Latin America and Spain. Finally, Hybrid Learning does not appear on the map due to its lower representation, therefore, analyzed in isolation, it stands out only in China and in the US.

Source: Seem in March 2022 at: https://trends.google.com.br/trends/explore?date=2020-01-01%202020-12-31&q=Hybrid%20learning,Remote%20learning,Blended%20learning,Semipresencial

Figure 1 – Map of the presence of two terms Blended Learning, Remote learning, Semipresencial and Blended learning in 2020 in Google Trends. 

In Brazil, the query in Google Trends was made using the terms in Portuguese Ensino Remoto, Ensino Híbrido and, also, or Semipresencial. The latter was suggested by its own platform as a term related to the others that have been included in the comparison, being associated both to teaching and to modality. The term in English Blended Learning was included in the function of fairly widespread use in publications of the educational area in the country. No result obtained, not that it reaches the regional distribution of queries about expressions, it was possible to observe the predominance of Hybrid Teaching, not only in Tocantins, while Remote Teaching was the most sought-after expression in Acre, Roraima and Rondônia. The Semi Presential term appears as the most popular in Amazonas, Paraná and São Paulo and the Blended Learning term did not present a number of inquiries by Internet users that would stand out in a general comparison.

In Figure 2, observing the interest in each of the terms individually, Hybrid Teaching stands out in Tocantins, Maranhão and Alagoas, the three federation units with the highest number of searches for the term. In relation to Remote Learning, despite the general interest, Paraíba, Roraima and Acre were the states with the most searches, and, as for the blended term, Pará, Amazonas and Paraná stand out. Queries for the term Blended Learning were significant only in Ceará, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. It should be noted that the place where Internet users most searched for the term Blended Learning in the country, in 2020, was the state of Ceará.

Source: Reproduction in March, 2022, from: https://trends.google.com.br/trends/explore?date=2020-01-01%202020-12-31&geo=BR&q=Ensino%20H%C3%ADbrido,Ensino%20Remoto,Blended%20learning,Semipresencial

Figure 2 – Map of interest in Brazil in the search for the terms Remote Teaching (Ensino Remoto) , Hybrid Teaching (Ensino Híbrido), Blended Learning and Semi Presential (Semipresencial) 

In addition to showing a greater interest in one or another term searched on Google, Figure 3 shows that they were intense in the North and Northeast regions of the country, which may represent a greater need for information about them in these places compared to other regions along the country.

Source: Reproduction in march, 2022, from https://trends.google.com.br/trends/explore?date=2020-01-01%202020-12-31&geo=BR&q=Ensino%20H%C3%ADbrido,Ensino%20Remoto,Blended%20learning,Semipresencial

Figure 3 Comparative map of interest in Brazil in the search for terms Remote teaching (Ensino Remoto), Hybrid Teaching (Ensino Híbrido), Blended Learning and Semi presential (semipresencial). 

The platform also makes it possible to know the main topics of queries related to these terms. In the case of Hybrid Teaching, the most used expressions by internet users to search for information were: “hybrid teaching system” and “what is hybrid teaching”. Regarding Remote Teaching, the searches were: “remote teaching meaning”, “emergency remote teaching”, “difference between “ead” and remote teaching” and “what remote teaching means”. Regarding the blended learning term, the search was related to a scholarship website and, finally, in the case of Blended Learning, the information was not available or the searches were limited to the term itself.

The expression Remote Teaching appeared as a frequent term in Google searches, in the country, from April 2020 on, with the maximum peak period from October 4th up to the 10th of that year. In fact, the term Remote Teaching emerges as a response to the pandemic moment in which face-to-face activities were suspended and, therefore, the interest and need to define and understand its characteristics and how close it is to and how far it is from other forms of organization such as distance education, blended learning or blended learning.

ABSENCE AND CONCEPTIONS OF HYBRID TEACHING

In Brazil, the expression “semi-presential” has long been related to the possibility of offering and carrying out teaching and learning processes in an articulated way with the use of TDIC, especially in Higher Education. Ordinance No. 2,253, of October 18, 2001, for example, regulated the possibility of on-site higher education courses to carry out the “offer of subjects that, in whole or in part, use a non-presential method” (BRASIL, 2001) and, at the same time, 4,059, of December 10, 2004 (BRASIL, 2004), the expression “non-presential method” gave way to “semi-presential mode”, meaning the “mediation of didactic resources organized in different information supports that use remote communication technologies”.

Besides, Ordinance No. 1,134, of October 10, 2016, and the next ones that followed, do not refer to the term “semipresencial” or “semipresencialidade”, starting to refer to this practice as being on-site undergraduate courses with “offer of disciplines in the distance modality", then as "offer of disciplines with distance learning methodology" (Ordinance No. 117/2019) (BRAZIL, 2016, 2018, 2019).

Figure 5 illustrates the sequence of Ordinances since the 2000s that would be responsible for regulatg ainctivities in on-site higher education courses.

Source: Prepared by the authors from the Ordinances (BRASIL, 2001, 2004, 2016, 2018, 2019).

Figure 5 – Sequence of Ordinances that provide for workload distance learning in face-to-face undergraduate courses 

It is understood that the regulations that started to use the expression "distance modality", instead of blended, would be more coherent with the educational legislation as a whole, since there are only two educational modalities for Higher Education, namely - the face-to-face and distance modality – since the regulation of article number 80 of Law #9,394/1996 (BRAZIL, 1996). In this way, the use of the term blended presence was, it can be said, inappropriate and in disharmony with other legal texts.

The publication of new ordinances in 2017 defined the maximum percentage of 30% (thirty percent) of classroom hours in distance education courses and 40% (forty percent) of distance hours in classroom courses (BRASIL, 2018, 2019). This is a percentage that has grown over the years. In Figure 6, it is possible to compare the main changes in the ordinances that regulate non-face-to-face activities in face-to-face higher education courses.

Source: Prepared by the authors from ordinances (BRASIL, 2001, 2004, 2016, 2018, 2019).

Figure 6 Main changes in the Ordinances regulating non-face-to-faceactivities in face-to-face undergraduate courses 

In the scope of higher education regulation, blended teaching designated the time-spatial displacement that, in practice, meant the insertion of subjects taught with support and mediation of TDIC in whole or in part and, being understood as the application of the standardized possibility by the legal framework described.

It should be noted that the expression “hybrid” does not appear in the main Ordinances in Figure 6, although it is widely used by Higher Education Institutions, especially private ones, and in the academic literature in the area, in which the expression “hybrid” and “semi-presential” have been mixing for some time.

“[...] Semi Presential teaching is also known as blended or blended learning because it encompasses a great number of possibilities: multiple combinations of approaches and methods according to needs, circumstances and goals, use of practices commonly seen in distance education (multimedia resources, streaming video, synchronous and asynchronous, etc.), learning communities, etc” (^{QUEVEDO, 2011}, p. 18).

In fact, part of the discussions about a definition of what will be Hybrid Teaching is related to what is presentiality. For ^{Behar (2020)} and Schlemmer (2019), it makes no sense to consider presence only from the point of view of physical presence in the same time and space, but as relational presence, that is, one that allows interaction and “being present” , through technology. Therefore, they propose the deterritorialization of presence and the legitimation of presence through the virtual interface, whether in platforms of synchronous interaction by audio and video and, perhaps, in the future, with holograms or other forms still to be developed. In this sense, Blended Learning seems to align with this perspective, enhancing multimodality.

The term multimodality or multimodal is also polysemic and can have specific meanings for each area of ​​knowledge, from transport to semiotics. According to Corrêa and Coscarelli (2018, p. 467-469), in the distance modality or not, computer-mediated educational mediation uses several resources that would organically and articulately unify communication and information resources, text and design - these combinations become increasingly complex as new technological resources are appropriated by subjects. In this sense, multimodality can be considered as being another synonym of hybrid, understood as the fluidity between modalities, in which the student transits from one to another, without the borders between one and the other being rigidly demarcated, as proposed by ^{Schlemmer and Moreira (2019)}, as well as Kenski, Medeiros and Ordéas (2019). For these authors, the issue is not to determine where each of the modalities begins and ends, but the possibility of being more than complementary, a new configuration that they call Blended, Hybrid and/or Multi modal – the last one seems to be less frequently.

As explained by Roza, Veiga and Roza (2018, p.2), “although there is not a single and universal one regarding Blended Learning, its conception has evolved over time, with technologies, with current needs and with the understanding of researchers”. It is possible to point out that a generalized modification of pedagogical organization and planning practices are underway in Higher Education institutions, influenced by the popularization of distance education but, not necessarily linked to it, of integration of TDIC to classroom teaching. Its main manifestation has been the “Technological Hybridism in Education (HTE)”, according to Struchiner and Gianella (2018), for whom it becomes increasingly difficult to dissociate the different media and their languages, this process being more than the mere convergence of means, in addition to the space-time and physical-virtual relationships in the teaching and learning process.

Thus, in Brazil and all over the world, the denominations Blended Learning (b-Learning), Hybrid Teaching, Hybrid Education, blended, Bimodal or Mixed Education, refer to a diversity of possibilities not yet so well established in their differences and approximations, so, they may or may not be treated as synonyms (ALONSO; MACIEL; SILVA, 2017; KENSKI; MOREIRA; ORDÉAS, 2019; ^{MORAN, 2015}, ²⁰²¹).

Hybridity and Blended Learning or Blended (e)Learning, and their complexity, can favor interactions and social dimensions of teaching, provided that it is foreseen in the design of its didactic design and can be implemented through the technology used. (KENSKI; MOREIRA; ORDÉAS, 2019; MONTEIRO; MOREIRA; LENCASTRE, 2015; ^{MORAN, 2021}).

“[...] Blended learning implies the integration between face-to-face and online higher education environments. The convergence of teaching and learning practices is instituted, [...], which modifies the concept of presence, both of the teacher and the student” (KENSKI; MOREIRA; ORDÉAS, 2019, p. 147).

As in the perspectives of Moreira, Monteiro and Lancastre (2015), ^{Moran (2021)} and Kenski, Medeiros and Ordéas (2019), ^{Moreira and Monteiro (2018}, p. 86-7) it is indicated that Blended Learning “affirms itself as an education concept characterized by the use of combined or mixed solutions, involving the interaction between face-to-face and distance modalities, the interaction between pedagogical approaches and the interaction between technological resources”. Therefore, it transcends issues related exclusively to the modality and even to technologies, referring to all this and also to pedagogical innovations.

^{Horn and Staker (2015}, p.34) propose that “Hybrid Education is any formal educational program in which a student learns, at least in part, through online teaching, with some element of student control over time, place, path and/or rhythm”. This definition would add the choice of the “learning subject” to the flexibility and mix of face-to-face and virtual already known in other concepts of hybridity, giving a less imposing character. The authors also emphasize that there is not only one possibility of pedagogical design, but several possibilities to be explored by institutions in the construction of their pedagogical projects.

Below, Table 2 summarizes the conceptions identified during the research for this article, in Portuguese, as well as its correspondent in English.

Although hybridity refers to arrangements where face-to-face and online/virtual elements are highlighted, Moran's (2021) clipping stands out, who prefers the expression Hybrid Education instead of Hybrid Teaching. For the author, the expression that emphasizes “teaching” results in a reductionist conception of education, with experiences focused on the transposition of lectures to digital media. On the other hand, Hybrid Education would refer to broader arrangements regarding the possibilities of integration and articulation of educational processes, not only face-to-face and virtual, but also mixing the formal with the non-formal, the academic and professional environment, different areas, methodologies, didactics and forms of evaluation, in addition to the time and space references of the distance modality.