ABSTRACT
Online learning now represents the post-industrial era of distance education with the focus on designing context specifi c collaborative educational experiences (Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2010). Integrating ICT, online learning creates both independence and interaction enabling the creation of learning communities. Online learning has been utilized extensively to enhance classroom learning as well as to increase access to educational experiences at a distance. Articles on the educational uses of computer mediated communication (CMC) in general and asynchronous computer conferencing in particular began appearing in the 1980s. One of the fi rst articles to cause distance educators to take note was by Roxanne Hiltz (1986). She argued that CMC could be used to build a “virtual classroom.” At about the same time, Paulsen and Rekkedal (1988) discussed the potential of CMC and stated that “the most exciting challenge in the long run will be to apply the new technology to create new and more effi cient learning situations, rather than replicate the traditional classroom or distance learning environment” (p. 363). Th ese insights were prescient.
