learning - Academic Conferences Limited

John Jessel
schools today (Ofsted, 2009). The current work explores the issues at a time when VLEs are
expected to play a major role in learning and when ways of realising the potential for learning through
use of VLEs in schools are relatively unexplored. The focus in this paper is on the development of
resources and methods at a pre-trial stage by teachers in five London secondary schools. It considers
some possibilities VLE technologies can offer and reports on ideas developed by teachers and some
issues involved in the take-up of innovation.
2. Perspectives on learning
Regardless of innovation, a central concern within education is the potential technology offers for
learning. The relationship between technology and theoretical perspectives on learning is one that is
continually under review, particularly as new technologies emerge. Over the last five decades ideas
linking learning to technology have ranged from an associationist perspective where learning is
viewed in terms of observable behaviours that could be shaped by progressive reinforcement through
a tightly defined sequence of objectives that could be presented to the learner. A learning programme
could be administered with the aid of a teaching machine where elements of information could be
presented, questions asked and immediate feedback to responses given. From this perspective the
brain was a ‘black box’; other than the effects of reinforcement what went on inside was of no interest.
In contrast to viewing the mind as a black box and focusing on the programming of observable
behaviours, a cognitive perspective is concerned with inner mental activities. The focus is on
processes such as thinking and reasoning and representation in memory. According to constructivist
theory learning is an active process. We form mental representations that are based upon our
experience of the world around us and form the basis of our knowledge or understandings.
Constructivist pedagogy is based on creating an environment in which learners can interact and
providing activities that encourage experimentation and discovery (Jonassen, 1994). The use of
technology in accordance with a constructivist framework would include the provision an environment
where learning can take place through experimentation and interaction, as might be achieved with the
use of computer simulations or the control of a screen ‘turtle’ using a language such as Logo.
More recently in educational theory there has been a shift of focus towards work that highlights
learning as a social activity rather than a cognitive and individual one (Crook, 2001). An important
contribution is Vygotsky’s (1978) emphasis on the social context of learning. In a ‘social constructivist’
approach learners can be encouraged by those more experienced in an area to reflect on and
articulate the principles involved in activities in which they are engaged. The role of language is
regarded as important and through such ‘scaffolding’ the idea is that learners would be able to
achieve understandings that they would not have done if unsupported in this way.
Although there are different views on what counts as social constructivism, a general feature is that
meaningful knowledge, as opposed to something that already exists and waiting to be passed on, is
socially and culturally constructed: meanings are created through human interaction and with the
environment (Kukla, 2000). However, knowledge can also be seen to emerge as it is ‘constructed and
reconstructed between participants in specific situated activities, using the cultural artefacts at their
disposal, as they work towards the collaborative achievement of a goal’ (Wells, 1999: 140). This has
been made explicit through Bakhtin’s (1981) notion of dialogism where interaction is viewed on a
more symmetrical basis.
The place of dialogue within learning is also consistent with the concept of a community of practice
(Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). A community of practice occurs when people jointly engage
socially in a common enterprise or activity, and through this learn together. Rather than being an
individual pursuit or academic exercise largely confined to the classroom, learning is ‘situated’ within
the framework provided by the community of practice through which participation can take place.
Here, participation is central to learning; this may be relatively peripheral at first but through
observation and practice learners take on the identity of the community and become more central
(Wenger 1998). This more ‘situated’ form of learning can, of course, occur without the aid of digital
technology. However, with the emergence of VLEs or Web 2.0 and there is further scope for social
participation.
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