E-learning pedagogy in the third millennium: the need for combining social and cognitive constructivist approaches

An analysis of the characteristics of education and educational institutions of the third millennium shows that predominant features are flexibility, inclusiveness, collaboration, authenticity, relevance and extended institutional boundaries. Roles of both students and teachers have changed significantly as educational goals have broadened to include lifelong learning, global interaction, the acquisition of meta-cognitive knowledge and skills, and processes include negotiated curricula and real-life tutors and informants. This is a demanding package that appears to lead us naturally to a social constructivist paradigm for learning and teaching. While few would dispute the value of this approach in humanistic terms, a series of dilemmas – social, conceptual, political, pedagogical – have been articulated. The author will demonstrate that although these are not insurmountable, addressing them has major time implications. The paper argues that to free up time we need to combine social constructivist activities with cognitive constructivist ones, incorporating personalised ICALL systems.