ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how and why online learning is quite different from its industrial predecessor, classic distance education. The chapter concludes with a short discussion of a social-constructivist process model of online learning, the Community of Inquiry framework. Technological innovation has also produced a suite of digital applications collectively labeled “social media.” The pedagogical affordances of social media are many but they center on supporting communication and collaboration over time and distance. The growth of computing power has led to tools for collecting, organizing, and analyzing vast amounts of data. “Constructivism” is the name given to theories of learning grounded in an epistemological alternative to objectivist theories of knowledge. Constructivism likens knowledge-centered learning to learning a landscape by living in it and exploring it from a variety of perspectives and so argues for the design of learning environments that encourage sense-making and learning with understanding through in-depth explorations of big ideas.
