tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953347167612711862.comments2008-07-13T12:55:38.422-07:00Stephen Lahanashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08345445031813356956noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6953347167612711862.post-5244437677030869792008-07-13T06:04:00.000-07:002008-07-13T06:04:00.000-07:00Stephen,<BR/>I agree with the gist of what you are saying, but I would take things one step further and look forward to what, for want of a better term, I would call the Web 2.5. "Me-learning" should, or at least could, morph into "we-learning". You're right about traditional education practicing (and preaching) conformity. The paradox is that at the same time, and very consistently, it has actually promoted a form of "me-learning". It's not enough simply to turn the tables and give priority to the learner over the teacher. Everything needs to be redefined. In its extreme individualism, industrial age education has been all about personal achievement, or "me in competition with the others". "We-learning" and the Web 2.5 would mark a more radical shift from using networks alternatively to consume and show off (networks of narcissism) to using them to build a culture of mutual support and encouragement on the model of CoPs. To my mind, stopping with the paradigm of "me-learning" is tantamount to the naive belief in pure laissez-faire capitalism, i.e. if everyone blithely pursues and promotes their self-interest, everyone will benefit. Trickle-down education?<BR/><BR/>The way I see it, when we begin realizing that there are common goals which we can collectively discover for ourselves and implement (no need for an educational authority to tell us what we need to know, but we might listen to and take account of some suggestions drawn from experience), then the networking tools we are just beginning to get used to will enable us to turn ourselves into a learning society. <BR/><BR/>In other words, there is a deep cultural change that must take place and not just the superficial shift in technology that makes self-indulgence easier to achieve. The marketers would love to leave it at that, but learning at least potentially involves going beyond a purely marketing vision of the world. The twentieth century gave us the almighty consumer; perhaps the twenty-first will give us the almighty learning community.<BR/><BR/>- PeterPeter Isacksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11345466329362975451noreply@blogger.com