For decades, colleges and universities have struggled with making online and blended learning courses as meaningful and engaging as in-person classes. At least momentarily, the COVID-19 pandemic has put many students and instructors on a level playing field. More courses than ever, including those that have historically been offered exclusively in person, are being taught through a remote or blended model.

The current environment represents an enormous opportunity for higher education institutions to step back, take stock and seek out solutions to increase the quality of their remote and blended learning approaches.

Here are three ways that technology can help.

Not long ago, educators could view digitally enabled learning as a useful enhancement to traditional teaching techniques. No more. Technology has become such a dominant force in the classroom — and in society — that educators must do more than just try to leverage it for their own purposes. To remain fully relevant in an…

Serving as a classroom teacher, school administrator and chief technology officer over the course of 14 years, I’ve seen the emergence of classroom instruction combined with self-directed online study. Blended learning, as it is called, is gaining in popularity. In fact, recent statistics show that more than half of sixth- through 12th-grade students complete online…