We present the Personal Learning Environment (PLE) as a practical intervention concerning the organization of technology in education. We explain this by proposing a cybernetic model of the "Personal Learner" using Beer's Viable System Model (VSM). Using the VSM, we identify different regulatory mechanisms that maintain viability for learners, and…

In this paper, two theoretical approaches to language teaching, the audio-lingual and the cognitive code methods, are examined with respect to how they deal with feedback in the classroom situation. Audio-lingual theorists either ignore completely the need for feedback in the classroom or deal with it only in terms of its reinforcing attributes.…

Describes four major types of learning theories (behavioral, cognitive, cybernetic, and andragogical); examines pertinent literature for each; and traces links between the literature of learning theory and that of the design of online public access catalog instructional systems. (32 references) (Author/CLB)

Different theories of programed instruction are compared and contrasted, and their application in the language laboratory is discussed. Chapters on programing theories include: (1) Skinner and linear programing, (2) Crowder and intrinsic programing, (3) Pressey and complementary programing, (4) Gilbert and mathetics, and (5) computer assisted…

Various Soviet conceptions of technology and their influence on the automation of instruction in the Soviet Union are examined, and the history of the development of Soviet programed instruction is sketched. Key principles and techniques from Soviet psychology, pedagogy, computer technology, and cybernetics are explained in terms of their…