Many e-learning designs still hold to the “teaching as delivery” model when designing e-learning programs (de Vries, 2003). These designers consider learning to be the intake of information through the well-designed presentation of information using media designed to enhance the perception process (p. 160). One perspective on this approach is the “elaboration theory” developed by Reigeluth (1987, 1999), who proposes three organizations for designing content:
• the conceptual elaboration sequence (when there are many related concepts to be learned),
• the theoretical elaboration sequence (when there are many related principles to be learned), and
• the simplifying conditions sequence (when a task of at least moderate complexity is to be learned).