Constructivist learning theories and IT

This article is concerned with constructivist theories of learning and how they relate to the design and use of IT in education. Not surprisingly, much of the work on learning theories comes from developmental psychology, and it is mainly this that I shall draw on. Changes in the way that cognitive development has been viewed and accounted for during the past thiry years have been paralleled to some extent in changes in views and theories of adult learning, but less so in theories of teaching. Theories of teaching and instructional design often bear little resemblance to ideas about learning and I shall argue that it is accounts of cognition, of learning, that will be most helpful in analysing what is happening when learners engage with information technology of all kinds, rather than accounts of teaching