This paper discusses a framework for designing online tasks that capitalizes on the possibilities
that the Internet and the Web offer for language learning. To present such a framework, we draw from constructivist theories
(Brooks and Brooks, 1993) and their application to educational technology (Newby,
Stepich, Lehman and Russell, 1996; Jonassen, Mayes and McAleese, 1993); second language learning and learning autonomy (Benson
and Voller, 1997); and distance education (Race, 1989; White, 1999). On the one hand our model balances the requirements of
the need for control and learning autonomy by the independent language learner; and on the other, the possibilities that
online task-based learning offer for new reading processes by taking into account
new literacy models (Schetzer and Warschauer, 2000), and the effect that the
new media have on students’ knowledge
construction and understanding of texts. We explain how this model works in the design of reading tasks within the specific
distance learning context of the Open University, UK. Trayectorias is a tool that consists of an open problem-solving Web-quest
and provides students with ‘scaffolding’ that guides their navigation around the Web whilst modelling learning
approaches and new learning paradigms triggered by the medium. We then discuss a small-scale trial with a cohort of students (n = 23).
This trial had a double purpose: (a) to evaluate to what extent the writing
task fulfilled the investigators’ intentions; and (b) to obtain some information
about the students’ perceptions of the task.