It’s getting clearer that, for so many types of learning, we learn with not from technology. Jonassen’s idea of “technology as intellectual partner” makes a lot of sense, and helps direct learning designers away from what Scardamalia and Bereiter call "shallow constructivism". There’s a brief overview of technology as intellectual partner, here.
Closely connected to this is the view of learning objects as resources to support enquiry-based (problem based, case, scenario etc. etc.) learning. So learning objects aren’t chunks of content strung together to “transmit” knowledge; they’re resources assembled in order to support construction of learning in the context of authentic work. Wiley’s doing some good work on this, and this approach is also well explained by Bannan-Ritland, Dabbagh & Murphy.
Another piece of the jigsaw is the rich dialoguing that occurs in learning communities and, increasingly, amongst bloggers. If Tom Coates (and others) is right, then dialoguing is one ingredient of the glue that sticks a learning object environment together.
One more thought: what I’d like, as a pragmatic learning designer, is a clearer picture of when to take which approach. There are clearly many occasions where one-way explanation of content (broadcasting) is still required. But what kinds of learning require this? With what learner groups? At what level? I’ll keep looking for a thorough taxonomy.
9:46:02 AM
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