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... ating such authentic simulations appears to limit its capacity to accommodate this. Even more ill-structured academic areas such as History and Philosophy require a level of context, even if that context is the academic one requiring the implementation of a culturally specific methodology and use of language. It is here, perhaps, that a Social Constructivist approach may be particularly useful. It could be argued that the use of the Web is best suited to that of a communications medium for collaborative approaches to learning rather than as a " 24 hour a day glorified whiteboard" (Archee & Duin, 1995). Such a use would involve a high level of social rather than physical interaction; an aspect well supported by the Web and integral to a Social Constructivist approach.

Going so far as to reject the 'botanical' and 'zoological' models of physiologists such as Piaget that see maturation as a passive biologically fixed process, Vygotsky favoured of a concept of learning as a social construct which is mediated by language via social discourse. In our complex use of language, humans are unique and it has become the primary enabling tool of learning: The most significant moment in the course of intellectual development, which gives birth to the purely human forms of practical and abstract intelligence, occurs when speech and practical activity, two previously completely independent lines of development, converge. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 24) Language and communication become the principle focus, and if one is to believe the claim that "throughout most of their lives people learn and work collaboratively, not individually" (Resnick, 1988, cited by Brown et al, 1989), then a framework based upon co-operative learning and social negotiation may be useful. While such an approach does not deny a Piagetian perspective, it also contains a major strength in that it can help to form learning is appropriate to the culture in which it is to be implemented (Tudge, 1990). Laurillard emphasises learning as an iterative process, involving discursive, adaptive, interactive, and reflexive qualities, the main focus being on teacher-student relationship since "academic knowledge consists in descriptions of the world, and therefore comes to be known through a discursive interaction between teacher and student" (Laurillard, 1993, p. 89). Other studies, too, argue for the importance of mentoring in the process of learning (Archee & Duin, 1995; Brown et al. , 1989). Most Social Constructivist models, such as that proposed by Jonassen (1994), however, also stress the need for collaboration among learners, in direct contradiction to traditional competitive approaches.

One Vygotskian notion, that has significant implications for peer collaboration, is that of the 'Zone of Proximal Development. ' Defined as "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978), it differs from the fixed biological nature of Piaget's stages of development. Through a process of 'scaffolding' a learner can be extended beyond the limitations of physical maturation to the extent that the "the development process lags behind the learning process" (Vygotsky, 1978). This has significant implications for the Web as a communications medium. While it may not be highly interactive in a physical sense, the Web has strong potential for social interactivity. The goal of this type of approach is the achievement of 'virtual communities' of learners on the Internet working in small collaborative groups to achieve a common goal (Dillenbourg & Schneider, 1995). While it would appear that care is necessary in the formation of such groups, it has been proposed that heterogenous grouping can assist in the creation of zones of proximal development (Walker & Lambert, 1996).

Traditional Internet communication tools such as E-mail, Newsgroups, Internet Relay Chat, and MOOs offer both the rapid synchronous communication of normal speech as well as asynchronous interaction which may help to promote a more reflective metacongitive approach. With the use of Web browser plug-ins and server software such as Ichat, such facilities are now becoming available in a more cohesive form on the Web. Examples of learning through communication can be seen in commercial environments such as Top Class (WBT Systems, 1997) which have no actual content but provide the functionality required for real-time communication and collaborative learning. It would be convenient to see Social Constructivism as a single solution to the limitations of the Web, but no one theoretical approach is likely to achieve the broad range of educational outcomes required from tertiary study. Both Cognitive Theory and Constructivism are not without their critics, who are often damning in their observations of what are, after all, philosophies much less open to the rigorous scientific testing inherent in a behaviorist paradigm.

Epistemologically, the relativism of Constructivism is particularly contentious. Constructivism focuses on the individual interpretation of a perceived external reality, and it has been claimed that "individual understanding and conceptualization is parasitic upon this extra-individual scientific domain", leading to the criticism that Constructivism is "old unpalatable, empiricist wine in a new bottle" (Matthews, 1992) One of the most tangible criticisms of Social Constructivism is the type of learning it supports. While it may be true that social negotiation is a useful approach to achieving consensual understanding of ill-structured subject matter, even in the 'softest's ub jects there is often a body of undisputed knowledge. Constructivist strategies are often not efficient, resulting in "a trial-and-error approach to the performance in the real world" (Merrill, 1997). Explicit guidelines for the use of real-time chat and threaded discussion lists have yet to be developed and there is little doubt that the unique attributes of on-line social interaction will play a large part in the effectiveness of the Web as a collaborative medium. Recent experiences with the use of Listservs at Edith Cowan University have produced mixed results.

When a clear structure through prescribed activities is given to the interaction which takes place, students have anecdotally expressed positive outcomes from the experience. The discomfort which some students initially experience in posting their ideas to the 'ether' of cyberspace, as well as low participation rates where social interaction is seen as an adjunct rather than an integral component of study, however, suggest more research in this area is needed. Finally, it must be noted that the Web, and Internet in general are likely to change significantly in coming years. Increasing bandwidth and processing power will make activities such as video conferencing and real time visual manipulation of data across large distances a reality. This will undoubtedly impact greatly on on-line educational practice. In the mean time, however, where the goals of instruction are broader than can be easily accounted within traditional approaches, it may be that instructional strategies informed by a Social Constructivist paradigm can help to lessen the inadequacies for highly interactive authentic learning which are manifest in the Web in its current form.

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