Currently many instructional Web sites just simply deliver course materials without integrating the role of teacher in guiding learners to use these materials to construct knowledge. Learners only passively receive the presented materials. Our research is to provide support services to actively assist learners to construct knowledge using the constructivist approach to learning. This paper focu...

Inline with the BSCS 5E instructional model, the Minds of Chimera project is using constructivist learning to instruct and motivate creativity in a heavily modified Minecraft game server. We currently are developing games around kinematics, Boolean logic and computer programming to inspire player creativity and create new games. We are using a model of inspiration based on Investment Theory’s c...

Contemporary educational communications and technology have brought new ways for presentation of museum content. Advances in telecornmunlcations, computers, videography and printing are revolutlonlzing the grounds on which people encounter art, science, and culture. This techndoglcal change Is causing scientlsts and educators to re-think the formats for their material In our museums and, eventu...

After more than a decade, the early claims that elearning would transform university teaching are yet to be realised. As elearning, with learning management systems as the centrepiece, becomes entrenched in the mainstream, there is growing demand for a solid theoretical research base to inform elearning practice. We argue that the lack of a solid research base is in part due to the inherent dif...

A courseware for enhancing the learning of thermodynamics has been designed and developed based on ADDIE instructional design model with the integration of constructivism learning theory and visualization characteristics. The development of the courseware, which follows the guidance of the ADDIE model, has five phases consisting of analysis, design, develop, implement, and evaluate. The constru...

We discuss the development of an instructional design model, WisCom (Wisdom Communities), based on socio-constructivist and sociocultural learning philosophies and distance education principles for the development of online wisdom communities, and the application and evaluation of the model in an online graduate course in the USA. The WisCom model aims to facilitate transformational learning by...

Over the previous two decades the emergence of post-modernist thought (i.e., radical constructivism, social constructivism, deconstructivsm, post-structuralism, and the like) on the American intellectual landscape has presented a number of challenges to various fields of intellectual endeavor (i.e., literature, natural science, and social science) (Matthews, 1998; in press). Nowhere is this cha...

This paper examines the characteristics and value of designed instruction grounded in the constructivist theory. It also attempts to connect the theory to the prevailing technology paradigms to establish an alignment between pedagogical and technological considerations in support of the assumptions arising from constructivism. Distance learning provides a unique context in which to infuse const...

This articles examines the role of computer-mediated communication as well as broader interpretations of communication in Web-based instruction. Overviews of cognitive processing and cognitive constructivist paradigms are presented to illustrate their relevance for guiding development of Web-based courses. Instructional goals and communication strategies associated with these paradigms are iden...