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Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
As with Ewing and Miller (2002), this paper maps major features of constructivist and collaborative learning theories against a model for learning via information and communications technology (ICT).

CRLFCRLFWhile the overlap is fairly substantial, as I have written before, I do not necessarily follow the tenets of collaborative or constructivist learning. But I do support, in broad strokes, the elements of learning via ICT depicted in this paper.

CRLFI read Ewing as saying that the principles of collaborative and constructivist learning should inform the design (and evaluation) of e-learning. But I wonder whether instead we should see e-learning as informing these two theories. Take, for example, the issue of learner control. Ewing cites Merrill: "organisation and elaboration within a learning environment should be part of the instructional design rather than being left to the learner to decide for himself." This is just the opposite of what a study of internet culture would suggest. The promise of ICT, it seems to me, is that we can allow a much greater degree of learner control that the previous theories allowed.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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