The Theory and Practice of Online Learning

Abstract

This second edition of the Theory and Practice of Online Learning is an updated version of the highly successful 2004 first edition.Each of the chapters has been revised to reflect current theory and practice, and four new chapters have been added.The first edition was a landmark experiment: it was both produced in paper copy and made available for free download under a Creative Commons license.The 400 paper copies sold rapidly and over 80,000 copies of the full text have been downloaded, in addition to thousands of copies of individual chapters.A number of the chapters have also been translated into five languages and reprinted regionally.The text and individual chapters have also been widely cited by other scholars.A December 2007 search of Google Scholar shows that the full text has been cited 65 times and the individual chapters a further 243 times.Finally, each of the authors has received positive feedback, both for the quality of the work and for its availability.accurately be described as complex, diverse, and rapidly evolving.Acknowledging complexity does not excuse inaction.Distance educators, students, administrators, and parents are daily forced to make choices regarding the pedagogical, economic, systemic, and political characteristics of the distance education systems within which they participate.To provide information, knowledge, and, we hope, a measure of wisdom, the authors of this text have shared their expertise, their vision, their concerns, and their solutions to distance education practice in these disruptive times.Each chapter is written as a jumping-off point for further reflection, for discussion, and, most importantly, for action.Never in the history of life on our planet has the need for informed and wisdom-filled action been greater than it is today.We are convinced that education -in its many forms -is the most hopeful antidote to the errors of greed, of ignorance, and of life-threatening aggression that menace our civilization and our planet.Distance education (of which online learning is a major subset) is a discipline that subsumes the knowledge and practice of pedagogy, of psychology and sociology, of economics and business, of production This book is written in large part by authors from a single university -Athabasca University -which has branded itself "Canada's Open University."As an open university, we are pleased to be the first such institution to provide a text like this one as an open and free gift to others.