Interactive Learning Environments: Review of an Old Construct with a New Critical Twist

Abstract

This chapter reviews the domain of “interactive learning environments” in light of the growth of new digital technologies and recent developments in the understanding of the learning and teaching process. It traces the origin and some of the design assumptions that underpin this concept and illustrates how interactive learning environments are broadly defined in the literature. Indeed, the concept of interactivity can incorporate a raft of pedagogies and technologies from both a techno-centric and human-centric perspective. While there are some common assumptions about instructional design, such broad interpretations of the domain potentially hide a number of competing and coexisting perspectives in which new developments in learning theory have been borrowed for different ends.