Today we start looking at theory. This is a knotty problem because we have a variety of theoretical foundations that apply and no very good way think about which ones apply where. Just so we get this out of the way early, there are not valid theories of distance education or distance learning. Moore’s Transactional Distance Theory applies to any educational setting — not just distance — but is probably one of the more widely accepted guides to distance practice.
Luckily for us — in a serendipitous arrangement that I could never have planned — Stephen Downes is starting a discussion on the ITFORUM list about his paper on “Learning Networks and Connective Knowledge”. You should have seen this item come thru your ‘gators last week but may have skipped over it. What has happened is that Downes has made this paper available to the community in advance of a discussion that begins this morning on the ITFORUM list serve. You don’t have to participate in the discussion, but you take some time to read this paper (link in his story) and comment on it in your blogs. It’s very much the subject of the week and as current as it gets.