ONL

How learners can learn collaboratively while taking an online course if they are not in a classroom filled with classmates and they are physically isolated interacting only through their computer? At first, it may seem like an oxymoron but would it make more sense if the course was an online networked course? Behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism are three broad learning theories whose central idea is that learning occurs inside a person. These theories tend to not address learning processes that occur outside the person, such as learning that is happening and supported by technology and learning in online networked communities (1). In particular, constructivism's central idea is that learning is constructed, since learners build new knowledge upon the foundation of previous learning (2). Given the context of online learning, constructivism seems to acknowledge the impact of technology on learning the most among those three theories. Constructivism could be r...