Building on learner contributions: a web-supported pedagogic strategy

Since 1997, the authors have been involved with the increasingly widespread use of a Web-based course-management system called TeleTOP not only in their own university but also in other universities and training settings. The implementation of TeleTOP was accompanied with an emphasis on a pedagogy that was new to almost all of the instructors involved: that of shifting the focus in a course from the presentation of content to the facilitation of learners making contributions to the course TeleTOP environment, contributions that serve as subsequent learning resources for others in the same course and can be re-used as resources in other versions of the courses and other settings. This article describes the theoretical basis for the approach, illustrates how the pedagogy works in practice and gives some of the results.