Anderson, Terry & Dron, Jon (2011). Three generations of distance education pedagogy. IRRODL. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/890.
The article begins to define generations of distance education according to the technology support for delivery used: at first postal correspondence, at second mass media television, radio and film and at third interactive technology: audio, text, video, the web and immersive conferencing. However, the authors define and examine three generations of distance education pedagogy: cognitive-behaviourist, social constructivist and connectivist, as they define the learning experiences encapsulated in the learning design, instead of technology support, but the authors point out that each era developed distinct pedagogies, technologies, learning activities, and assessment criteria, consistent with the social worldview of the era in which they developed and that either on the technological or the pedagogical point of view, the three generations coexist, which means that the repertory is always increasing. And the article continues explaining each generation’s model, its cognitive, social and teaching presence, and its strengths and weaknesses, finally ending the explanation at a questioning about the future generations of distance education pedagogy. The book is a very relevant one because of the importance of the authors and the didactic content which organizes the evolution of pedagogy and more, tracing a parallel with the enabled technology at the moment for delivery distance education, which becomes an instigating content too, since it relates pedagogy and technology bringing the reader to the very up to date rationale: pedagogy and technology are intertwined so, to what pedagogy are we being taked by the artificial intelligence technologies?