CONSTRUCTIVISM IN THE DESIGN OF ONLINE LEARNING TOOLS

Online learning tools are often designed with a technology-driven view rather than a learning- driven one. This has often led to the failures of e-learning initiatives especially in higher education settings. This paper presents a study to map the use of constructivism as the theoretical basis for the design of online learning tools. A total of 39 selected journal articles were used as the data for this qualitative investigation. An analysis was carried out on the data and the results were noted in a set of matrix displays. The process was then reviewed by an expert panel acting as inter-raters. The findings indicate that constructivism is often used for online learning tools and activities related to communication and collaboration.

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