Control and Constraint in E-learning: Choosing When to Choose

Structure influences behavior. Through their structure, e-learning environments (including the people within them) to a greater or lesser degree control how we learn, within a framework bounded by intrinsic and external constraints such as physical and temporal limits, prior knowledge, ability, needs of narrative, conversational conventions, and so on. Control and Constraint in E-Learning: Choosing When to Choose discusses how many conventional technologies can constrain the behavior of the people who use them, and how they can be used to provide the learner with the ability to choose to choose. An invaluable addition to every library collection, this book provides a foundation for developers of software and users of Web 2.0 environments for education and learning, unifying many distance learning theories and match them to the affordances of e-learning in general, but social software in particular.