E-learning as technology, e-learning as learning

This paper explores two main themes: Firstly, it examines what we understand about the economic, technical and social impacts of new technologies and examines how this might relate to the complex range of technologies that fall under the title ‘e-learning’. It argues that detailed exploration, using foresight methods, of the likely impacts of various e-learning technologies is a key task. Secondly, understanding of how learning happens, from a constructivist viewpoint, is used to develop a set of criteria against which e-learning approaches can be judged. The paper concludes by applying the principles developed to the case of e-learning in electronics within D&T.