Implications of constructivism for computer-based learning

Constructivism has gained popularity recently, but it is not a completely new learning paradigm. Much of the work within Information Systems Science (IS) and especially within elearning use Constructivism as a reference ‘discipline’ (explicitly or implicitly) but few of the works done within IS discusses thoroughly what are the basic assumptions and implications of Constructivism. As a result, the technology has driven the applications, with theory only vaguely or superficially applied. Constructivism provides one theoretical approach to the use of computer-based systems, and, as such, deserves careful consideration. IS researchers – as IS is a transdisciplinary field should seek to do research which is good in terms of other disciplines and we need to go back to the original texts in the reference discipline to gain genuine appreciation of the arguments being proposed. This is also the aim of this paper.