1. What are your beliefs about how people learn best? What is the purpose of learning theory in educational technology?
There are several factors that affect a persons learning; motivation, knowledge and training in study itself which include; how to handle not understood and misunderstood terms, a balance of theory with the actual working parts of a subject, and a proper gradient of learning (learning curve), adequate and correct source materials, professional supervision in the case where the student hasn’t had adequate study training himself.
They learn best when all of the above factors are positive. This all concerns second
hand data and not a person’s own real experience. Each person has his own way of learning from his own experience and I would suppose that many of the factors cited
above could transfer easily to one’s own experiential learning.
2. What are the critical elements of a learning theory? Did Driscoll and Siemens miss any key questions or criteria? Provide a thoughtful critique of their discussion of learning theory.
Most of the critical elements of learning theory were touched on by Driscoll in the cognitive theory discussion. The Siemens paper would not download properly on
my system and I’ll have to reserve my comments until a later date.
Driscoll’s treatment of learning theory is comprehensive from an historical
Perspective and is well organized from a study perspective. From my viewpoint it
lacks the overall understanding of just how people really do learn that is actually
contained in the answer to number 1.


3.Critique Siemens’s “metaphors of educators.” Which of these metaphors best describes the role you believe an instructor should take in a digital classroom or workplace? Is there a better metaphor to reflect your view of the role of instructors?
Perhaps the network administrator metaphor best fits an instructor in a digital classroom or
workplace. Possibly virtual supervisor or electroplasmic communicating presence would work somewhat. Personally, I would continue to just use the term instructor, if nothing else, it would lower the confusion.