Theory on Ecological Design of Online Learning Environments

The design of online learning environments is the blueprint of its construction, and it is also the key factor that affects the learning results. But current design is often based on traditional instructional design theory, ignoring the particularity of online context, there was hardly any specific theory to direct online learning environments design. Under traditional design concept, all the environments are nearly the same, the modules in the environment are separate, teachers can´t implement different and rich activities at ease, and learners can´t integrate all the materials effectively. In order to solve this problem, we proposed ecological design approach in this paper. Ecological design approach emphasizes on holistic, which is embodied in three aspects: First, learners and learning environment are treated as a whole, learning environment afford learners as a whole. Second, the design of all the components of online learning environments including online learning platform, learning resources, learning support services, and learning community should follow the mainline determined by objective-activity. Third, there are three orientations of learning objective: behavioral objectives, evolving purpose, and expressive objectives, different orientations of objectives should follow different design model.