Group items tagged

Yochai Benkler, author of The Wealth of Networks, tells us we respond to the culture differently when we see it through the eyes of a participant rather than a consumer

And it is this participatory culture which has been facilitated by the new digital media in a way that stretches far beyond the imagination of previous generations.

When we are talking about the internet, we are talking about all of the activities we perform through this new information infrastructure and the mindset which emerges through our ongoing engagement and participation in the great public conversation that emerges through it.

Beyond the individual medium there is a media ecology -- all of the different kinds of communications systems which surround us and through which we live our everyday lives

and they have opened up a space where all of us can be welcomed as potential participants

All of the research shows that the communities of practice which grow up around this participatory culture are powerful sites of pedagogy, fueled by passion and curiosity and by a desire to share what we learn and think with others.

Pierre Levy tells us that in a networked society, nobody knows everything

everybody knows something

and what any given member of the community knows is available to the group as a whole as needed.

We are evolving towards this much more robust information system where groups working together can solve problems that are far more complex than can be confronted by individuals

Right now, schools are often using group work but not in ways which encourage real collaboration or shared expertise -- in part because they still assume a world where every student knows everything rather than one where different kinds of knowledge come together towards shared ends.

You wouldn't consider someone literate if they could read but not write text and we shouldn't consider someone literate if they can consume but not produce media