One of the key arguments we are making is that the role of educators needs to shift away from being expert in a particular area of knowledge, to becoming expert in the ability to create and shape new learning environments. In

You get to see students learn, discover, explore, play, and develop, which is the primary reason

We take it as a truism that kids learn about the world through play.

known that at that age, play and learning are indistinguishable. The premise of A New Culture of Learning is grounded in the idea that we are now living in a world of constant change and flux, which means that more often than not, we are faced with the same problem that vexes children. How do I make sense of this strange, changing, amazing world? By returning to play as a modality of learning, we can see how a world in constant flux is no longer a challenge or hurdle to overcome; it becomes a limitless resource to engage, stimulate, and cultivate the imagination. Our argument brings to the fore the old aphorism "imagination is more important than knowledge." In a networked world, information is always available and getting easier and easier to access. Imagination, what you actually do with that information, is the new challenge

users are not so much creating content as they are constantly reshaping context

how we learn is more important than what we learn.

Should we consider students to have two separate lives--a relatively digital free life at school and a digitally saturated life away from school--or should we consider them to have one life that integrates their lives as students and digital citizens?

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