Social-Constructivism - The Importance of Forums, Blogs and Wikis to E-Learning

There are many specific ways that online degreesdiscussions, links to texts, or anything they deem
and e-Learning courses facilitate the learning ofnecessary for their peers to see. There is also
students via computer technology. Traditionally,the added benefit of forums being asynchronous
video tutorials have offered instruction in a similarto allow students to post and respond at any
manner that a lecture would, and online chatstime they like to.
have allowed synchronous seminar-like discussionsBlogs, again, are simple to begin and maintain for a
to take place. In recent years though, the rise ofuser who is relatively new to the internet. In an
social web platforms have become included ine-Learning environment blogs can give a student
distance learning (as well as traditional higheran opportunity to show work, document their
education courses) to aid peer assessment; and,time on the course, or to focus on a subject
arguably, to enhance adaptation into anoutside of the curriculum. Subsequently blogs are
increasingly electronic world.also a great introduction to getting used to the
The idea of constructivism theory is accredited toworkings of the web and how to succeed online.
Jean Piaget who noted the internalisation ofLearning how web content travels and what
knowledge in learners, and now his ideas informsubjects are popular on the internet is now as
much of the way education is taught. In basicmuch of an important after-effect of e-Learning
terms Piaget theorises that experience stimulatesas the most basic IT skills - and becoming of
knowledge, and today it is generally regardedincreasing importance to potential employers.
that, for example, baking a cake would be aWikis are increasing in popularity among courses
better way to learn the process than reading aand learning establishments such as colleges and
book and being tested on it. Social-constructivismuniversities. Akin to the inherent community feel
in e-Learning refers to participation with others toof forums, wikis allow all users to edit the content
better the learning experience, and forums, blogs,of a collection of web-pages. In the same way
and wikis are increasingly used to achieve this.that Wikipedia allows everyone to edit and
Internet forums have been a popular social webre-write a continually evolving encyclopaedia,
tool for many years. This has no doubt been dueeducational wikis can be easily set up and run by
to the communal nature of their design, and theirteachers and course leaders to allow students to
simple and informative layout. Consequently,upload content that can range from, for example,
forums are particularly important to onlineniche subjects such as photography, or e-Learning
education because they are easy for newin the establishment itself. Arguably unlike forums
computer users to get used to and they offer anand blogs, there is more of an incentive for
almost instant community feel. It is then verystudents to uphold the standard of informative
quick and convenient for students to post work,quality when contributing to a wiki.