Distributed Learning

Social and Cultural Approaches to Practice

Mary R. Lea, Kathy Nicoll

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136452765
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

At a time of increasing globalisation, the concept of open and distance learning is being constantly redefined. New technologies have opened up new ways of understanding and participating in Learning. Distributed Learning offers a collection of perspectives from a social and cultural practice-based viewpoint, with contributions from leading international authors in the field. Key issues in this comprehensive text are:
*the challenges of ICT to traditional teaching and learning practices
*the value and relevance of 'activity theory' and 'communities of practice' in educational institutions and the workplace
*perspectives on the relationship between globalisation and distributed learning, and the breakdown of distinctions between global and local contexts
*issues of identity and community in designing courses for the virtual student
*language and literacies in distributed learning contexts
This book provides useful introductory reading, building a sound theoretical framework for practitioners interested in how distributed learning is shaping post-compulsory education.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Editors’ Introduction
• 1 Information, Knowledge and Learning: Some Issues Facing Epistemology and Education in a Digital Age
• 2 Informed Opportunism: Teaching for Learning in Uncertain Contexts of Distributed Education
• 3 Legitimate Participation in Communities of Practice
• 4 Looking Beyond the Interface: Activity Theory and Distributed Learnin
• 5 Workplaces, Communities and Pedagogy: An Activity Theory View
• 6 Distribution and Interconnectedness: The Globalisation of Educationa
• 7 The English Language and ‘Global’ Teaching
• 8 From Independent Learning to Collaborative Learning: New Communities of Practice in Open, Distance and Distributed Learning
• 9 Learning as Cultural Practice
• 10 The University Campus as a ‘Resourceful Constraint’: Process and Practice in the Construction of the Virtual University
• 11 Identity, Community and Distributed Learning
• 12 Flexible Literacies: Distributed Learning and Changing Educational Spaces
• Index