DISTRIBUTED LEARNING AND CONSTRUCTIVIST PHILOSOPHY
(UZAKTAN ÖĞRETİM VE YAPILANDIRMACI FELSEFE)

Distance education and its new form of distributed learning have been used in many countries to provide education to people who need training. Recent developments in instructional technology enable the institutions to distribute their education to more people in distant places than ever before. For instance, computing and communications technologies have been promoting the creation of new media, such as the World Wide Web and virtual reality. In turn, these media enable new types of messages and experiences. Interpersonal interactions across network channels, for instance, lead to the formation of virtual communities. According to Dede (1996), “the innovative pedagogies empowered by these emerging media, messages, and experiences make possible an evolution of synchronous, group, and presentation centered forms of distance education - which replicate traditional “teaching by telling” across barriers of distance and time - into an alternative instructional paradigm: distributed learning” (p. 4).

Seidel and Chatelier (1994) define the term distributed learning as “multi-way knowledge dissemination among teams, crews, etc.” (p. 2). However, in this study I adapt the definition of distributed learning as an educational format that involves multidimensional interactions (e.g., collaborations, discussions, feedback, lectures, etc.) among teachers and learners, at a distance, utilizing a variety of computer and telecommunication technologies.

The field of distributed learning has a lot of potential for educational purposes and lifelong learning. Also, some schools, (e.g., Ohio University, University of Phoenix) have combined distributed learning and constructivist learning environments. For instance, Ohio University offers “Master of Business Administration (MBA)” degrees in project-based distributed learning environment with a theoretical base in constructivist philosophy.

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