Reflections on the eclectic nature of the construction of a piece of work.

Constructivist learning environments are proposed as being the most appropriate environments to mediate the construction of meaningful knowledge. The distributed learning environment of the WWW encourage students to pursue learning tasks by drawing on a variety of social, physical, symbolic and intellectual resources. Hypertext, for example, is nonlinear and provides the learner the opportunity to explore and construct her own meaning through interaction not only with information, but also with other thinkers who are trying to come to their own levels of understanding about a common question. The end result of a students work can be an eclectic arrangement of pre-existing text, images, graphics, audio, video etc, creatively constructed to create something new.

The use of cognitive tools gives the student the ability to visually represent their own understanding of the meaning of that knowledge. The use of different types of cognitive tools also represents the type of intelligence of that particular person eg; a spreadsheet for a logical mathematical intelligence or a video for a visual intelligence. The opportunity to express oneself, in the fullness of their own intelligence, creates an environment that allows for deeper insight and understanding of ones own descriptive, self and critical reflections.