In memory of Dr. David Jonassen - the ET giant of constructivism

Wow. So very sorry to hear about the passing of Dr. David Jonassen yesterday, from lung cancer, via the ITForum listserv. I think he was at U of Missouri now; here's a fairly recent pic of him in his office...

Some of the long time and in my mind most revered members of the forum, like Dr. Dan Surry and Dr. Thomas Reeves, wrote quite lovely things in his memory, and Reeves said he was 'a giant in the field'. That is so true!

I even posted a brief paragraph to the list in thankful memory. I'm still at a loss for words to explain the profound impact that the work of Jonassen had on my intellectual development. I studied him when I was in my masters program at East Carolina and it must have been in either my instructional design class with Connie or in my multimedia class with Lee. In any case, the theory of constructivism totally coincided with the curriculum development work that I was writing when I was at Martin CC. As I may not have mentioned before, my introduction to instructional design was after the fact that I 'knew' it and was using the principles of it in my work. It totally made sense and gave me the theoretical background and underlying philosophy that was so missing from what I was already doing. I strongly believe that my ability to think in those terms more naturally came from my Symbas background - what with the Summerhill and Freire overtones of the school's philosophy, coupled with the autonomy and self-responsibility for ones own knowledge building, it was the educational per-curser to mind-tools and self motivated learning. I already knew that stuff, and that's not meant to sound or be boasting; I say that to express how much at home I felt upon learning about the philosophy of what I was already doing - and of course for the incredible expansion into the heights and depths of the theory and everyone else's practices. 
Once I learned about the formal roots and branches of constructivism there was no looking back, as I'm sure it directly effected some of the products that came out of my adult learning theories class at NC State, as well as all the way into my work with Irene, Forrest, and Antoinette on our distance learning instructional design model.

After all this pondering and remembering I felt sad, and not just sad for the passing of a legend in the learning psychology area. I felt sad because remembering David Jonassen made me remember how much I love instructional design, learning theory, and writing meaningful teaching and training curriculum. Today felt like me suddenly thinking about a past lover, a sweet and intense love affair in what seems like the long ago, that somehow, somewhere, only due to the passing of time and the import of other non-related life events, made you forget about that love, that passion, that once was the candle in your life, one of the pillars in the foundation of your soul. Ah, such bitter sweetness. As I tried to explain what constructivism was to Tim I was so dismayed to barely be able to recall some of the central tenets of the philosophy! Yikes! Had it been that long since I'd even thought about these shining glories in intellectual life?! How could something I once was so passionate about and so fully understood have fallen from my immediate grasp?

In memory of Dr. Jonassen I want to put together a mind map of sorts on constructivism, and I'll try and upload that this week sometime.

But for now; thanks Dr. Jonassen - for your vision, your passion, your crowning intellectual achievements.  Your work will always be in my heart and soul.