Beyond information pumping: Creating a constructivist e-learning environment
Seng Chee Tan, David Wei Loong Hung · NIE Digital Repository (National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University) · 2002
E-Learning is currently one of the "biggest" things in the world of training and learning. The popularity of eLearning stems from its advantages, such as 24/7 accessibility, anytime-anywhere learning, ease of update of information, and self-paced learning. Very often, information is presented as hypertext, sometimes including hypermedia. The notion of re-usable learning objects is also gaining popularity. In this article, it is argued that simply presenting information to learners may not be the best way for e-Learning to occur, as it is making too many assumptions: the learners are motivated, the learners are able to learn independently, and the learners can transfer and apply the knowledge to real-life situations. It is proposed that to best harness the potential of Internet affordances, the definitive advantage of e-learning over learning via other media is to adopt a social constructivist approach, which is based on Vygotskian theories of learning and situated cognition.