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While acknowledging the importance of Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy, Fink (2003) suggests a new taxonomy that goes beyond Bloom’s cognitive hierarchical learning levels.  The categories of Fink’s learning taxonomy are “relational and interactive” rather than mandated successive levels and address the following categories of learning: foundational knowledge, application, integration, human dimension, caring, and learning how to learn (Fink, 2003, p. 32). Constituent categories are interrelated as “achieving any one kind of learning simultaneously enhances the possibility of achieving the other kinds of learning as well” (Fink, 2003, p. 32).  In contrast to Bloom (1956), Fink (2003) moves instruction from teacher-centered to learning-centered

A teacher/instructor/professor obviously plays numerous roles in a traditional classroom: role model, encourager, supporter, guide, synthesizer

This model works well when we can centralize both the content (curriculum) and the teacher. The model falls apart when we distribute content and extend the activities of the teacher to include multiple educator inputs and peer-driven learning. Simply: social and technological networks subvert the classroom-based role of the teacher.

Networks thin classroom walls. Experts are no longer “out there” or “over there”.

In this issue, however, the expression “distributed learning environments” means something entirely different. Here we mean that the learning environments are distributed.