Journal of Online Learning Research and Practice
1 . Associative : where the focus is on the individual , learning as activity through structured tasks and learning through association and reinforcement .
2 . Cognitive / Constructivist : where the focus is on learning through understanding and learning building upon prior knowledge ; the learning is task oriented .
3 . Situative : where the learning is through social interaction and dialogue , in context and as social practice .
4 . Connectivist : based on learning in a networked context . ( Canole , 2015 , p . 69 )
These pedagogical typologies apply across online and blended education and are highly relevant to the work of instructional designers , instructors , and professional development administrators .
Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning
As telecommunications and technology continued to advance , educational delivery , instructional design , pedagogy , and andragogy also advanced . To support student success across learning formats throughout the evaluation of distance education , accessibility and engagement must continue to remain central .
The Americans with Disabilities Act ( ADA ) was signed into law in 1990 and prohibits “ discrimination and provides guarantees so that people with disabilities can fully participate in American life ” in places such as schools , businesses , and stores ( ADA National Network , n . d ., para . 1 ). The ADA passed just one year before the public received access to the Internet ( World Wide Web ). In 1998 , Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to require “ Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology ( EIT ) accessible to people with disabilities ” ( U . S . General Services Administration , 2020 , para . 1 ). Under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 , “ Federal agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information comparable to the access available to others ( U . S . General Services Administration , 2020 , para . 1 ). A final rule updating accessibility requirements covered by Section 508 took effect in 2018 ( U . S . General Services Administration , 2020 , para . 1 ).
As technology and the Internet continued to transform education and business , seminal guidelines to support accessibility and learning accompanied these advances . In 1999 , the World Wide Web Consortium ( W3C ) published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines , also known as “ WCAG ,” which provided 14 guidelines for web developers who wanted to ensure accessibility for users with disabilities ( Bartlo , 2015 ; W3C , n . d .). W3C was founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee , inventor of the World Wide Web .
The Center for Applied Special Technology ( CAST ), founded in 1984 , joined the Web Access Initiative of W3C in 1998 to assist in defining web
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