The pervasive influence of culture should be regarded as a significant concern in the design of technology‐enhanced learning systems. In fact, it has been included as one of the five essential foundations of effective student‐centred learning environments (Chen and Mashhadi, 1998). The other foundations are psychological, pedagogical, technological, and pragmatic. This article will focus mainly on the cultural and pedagogical considerations in the design of student‐centred learning systems with particular reference to three cases in Singapore. The experiences will illustrate some of the challenges and problems in designing and implementing learning systems in three different contexts: local‐institutional, trans‐institutional, and global. Some of the instructional design issues include those articulated by Collins (1997) in his consideration for building a constructivist learning environment. They are related to learning goals such as thoughtfulness vs memorization, whole tasks vs component skills tasks, breadth vs depth of knowledge, diverse vs uniform expertise, understanding vs access, cognitive vs physical fidelity. Two other issues also merit consideration, namely authentic vs abstract problem solving, and multi‐directional and multimedia communication vs direct one‐way communication. In the design of three Singapore‐based learning systems, the cultural assumptions of prevailing beliefs about education, the values of Singaporean multicultural society, and the role of individuals in society were considered. Two of the systems were designed for student teachers and the third was meant for students collaborating on projects across schools and nations. Lessons learned from the three experiences will be discussed with a view to making recommendations to other educators, instructional designers and policy makers in their decisions regarding their use of technology‐enhanced learning systems to nurture a more independent, thoughtful, resourceful, creative and responsible generation of citizens.

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