Rethinking E-Learning: Shifting the Focus to Learning Activities

Abstract

“Technology alone does not deliver educational success. It only becomes valuable in education if learners and teachers can do something useful with it” (OECD, 2001, p. 24). This quotation could be used as a bon mot for this chapter. Our main goal is to rethink e-learning by shifting the focus of attention from learning resources (learning objects) to learning activities, which also implies a refocusing of the pedagogical discussion of the learning process. Firstly, we try to identify why e-learning has not been able to deliver the educational results as expected 5 years ago. Secondly, we discuss the relation between learning objectives, learning resources, and learning activities, in an attempt to develop a consistent, theoretical framework for learning as an active, collaborative process that bears social and cultural relevance to the student. Finally, we specify our concept of learning activities, and argue for the educational advantages of creating large learning resources that may be used for multiple learning activities.