The Theory and Practice of Online Learning, Second Edition

Neither an academic tome nor a prescriptive "how to"guide, The Theory and Practice of Online Learning is anilluminating collection of essays by practitioners and scholars activein the complex field of distance education. Distance education hasevolved significantly in its 150 years of existence. For most of this time, it was an individual pursuit defined byinfrequent postal communication. But recently, three more developmentalgenerations have emerged, supported by televison and radio,teleconferencing, and computer conferencing. The early 21st century hasproduced a fifth generation, based on autonomous agents andintelligent, database-assisted learning, that has been referred to asWeb 2.0. The second edition of The Theory and Practice of OnlineLearning features updates in each chapter, plus four new chapterson current distance education issues such as connectivism and socialsoftware innovations.