Does e-learning provide a new and better approach to learning in the 21st century?
“There was once a notion that the course support systems would encourage and bring about more innovative and creative open learning environments, however this has not always been the case”, Oliver & McLoughlin, p.423. The Special Issue authors share a social constructivist approach to e-learning and see it as an ideal opportunity to include more student-centred and collaborative activities into their courses. At the same time they reject “the determinist view that technology is an autonomous force, and investment in a system is an automatic ticket to success”, (Brown, p.362) and stress that the technology is merely a tool and it is how the teacher uses it which is crucial (Brown, op cit, Fisher, p,329, Oliver & McLoughlin, p.423-4). See the teaching page for more about ‘constructivism’ and the technical page for more about ‘technology as a tool’. “. . . pressures for change in terms of course delivery in higher education will continue and technology will be part of both the problem and
