Chapters from Theory and Practice of Online Learning

Tuesday, I had a long day of flying and spending time in airports on my way to Indiana. (I'm here for Mother's Day and for my mother's 82nd birthday.) Before I left I printed a couple of chapters from Terry Anderson's and Fathi Elloumi's book, Theory and Practice of Online Learning. I read the first chapter, by Mohamed Ally, several months ago and enjoyed it as a good look at educational theory and tying it to various e-learning practices/strategies. While I did not enjoy chapters 2 and 4 as much, they both casued me to think about online learning as it relates to several current projects - ISWO being one of them.

Terry's chapter (2), Towards a Theory of Online Learning, made a case for the need for theory and two points that he draws from BrentWilson made a lot of sense to me as I go charging ahead, steeped in the demands of practice: 1) Theories can help us to invest our time and resources most effectively; 2) Theories force us to look beyond day-to-day contingincies and ensure that our knowledge and practice of online learning is robust, considered and ever expanding.

I also appreciated his argument that 'learner-centered' would be more accurately labeled 'learning-centered.' And as he discusses this Anderson posits that 'The online learning environment is ... a unique culteral context" and quotes Benedikt who says that cyberspace "has a geography, a nature, and a rule of human law." I'd love to sit down with some colleagues, maybe over a beer, and try to describe the geography, nature and rule of human law of the Internet.

Another point that might relate to our Work/Life Balance discussion is Anderson's observation that a danger of assessment-centered learning is a potential to increase workloads for online instructors.

He also discusses and points to others who would support many of the current posts in the ISWO Building Community forum. I think I'll leave that for another post.