Engaged Learning With Digital Media: The Points of Viewing Theory

In this chapter the authors present the Points of Viewing Theory (POV-T), a theory that explains the nature of engaged learning in social media environments. POV-T provides a framework for uncovering underlying patterns that lead to deep knowledge. Perspectivity technologies provide a platform for multiloguing, a place for learners to share the viewpoints of others, negotiate meaning, and create learning cultures. Readers are invited on a journey through the early origins of instructionist learning with technologies toward constructionist and social approaches. Following a description of the kinds of learning with digital media environments and of several pioneering digital media environments, questions are asked regarding how learning is changing with “smart” partners and how people will learn with them and each other, as they change.