Page 46 - Educational Technology A Primer for the 21st Century

34 2 Learning in the Context of Technologies
4. Think about the implications of connectivism for teaching. Suppose you want to
learn more about climate change, who might you ask to gain a better under-
standing? Is there a group you might join to follow up on your interest?
5. Think about the integration of technology and education and how the learning
theories evolved over time. Do you find a connection between specific tech-
nologies and learning theories? Can you describe a couple of examples?
6. Work with your group members or peers, to create a concept map to show how
learning theories and technologies are related to each other. Modify the concept
map based on your discussion in the group.

2.1 Introduction

Learning is a process that brings together personal and environmental experiences
and influences for acquiring, enriching or modifying one’s knowledge, skills,
values, attitudes, behaviors, and worldviews. Learning theories develop hypotheses
that describe how this process takes place. The scientific study of learning started in
earnest at the dawn of the twentieth century. Behaviorism, cognitivism,
socio-constructivism, and other views have been proposed as the emphasis has been
placed on cognitive style and emerging educational technologies. These theories
will be discussed in subsequent sections.
In this chapter, firstly the definition of learning in the context of technologies
will be described. Then, learning theories, including behaviorism, cognitivism,
constructivism, and other views, will be discussed. Finally, technology-enhanced
learning will be described briefly and elaborated in subsequent chapters.

2.2 Learning Theories

Learning happens everywhere and everyday for everybody, but what is learning?
Most people have the intuition that learning implies the ability to do something that
the learner could not do before or know something that the learner did not know
before.
In most psychological theories, learning is defined as a persistent change in
human performance or performance potential (Lohr & Chang, 2005). According to
Spector (2016), the changes could include one’s abilities, attitudes, beliefs,
knowledge, and skills. However, the major concepts and principles of learning vary
with learning theories in different ages. Learning theories are conceptual frame-
works describing how knowledge is absorbed, processed, and retained during
learning (Simandan, 2013). In the process of designing and developing instructional