Web 2.

0 and the changing ways we are using computers for learning: what are the
implications for pedagogy and curriculum?
1. Introduction
This paper is written as a basis for discussion and debate. It presents a series of hypotheses about
the development of education and training systems, institutions, pedagogy and curricula as the
basis for exploring how education may develop in the future. Central to these hypotheses is a
cultural understanding of education both as a reflection and part of wider societal organisation
and in individual terms as a reflection of the ways in which we learn and share knowledge.
Hypotheses
The first hypothesis is that education systems and institutions are developed to meet the needs of
society at particular stages of economic and social development. Education systems serve not
only to develop the skills and knowledge in the workforce required by industry but also to
develop social capital. Furthermore the organisational forms that education systems develop and
implement reflect particular organisational forms of capitalist production.
The second hypothesis is that industrial revolutions lead to profound and often paradigmatic
social change. However, such paradigm changes in the social arena tend to lag behind at times of
rapid technical development and change.
The present deep and prolonged industrial revolution, based on the development and
implementation of digital technologies, is leading to massive pressures on education and training
systems, both in terms of the changing demands from society – especially from employers – for
new skills and knowledge but also from the changing ways in which individuals are using Web
2.0 technology to create and share knowledge.
Paradigm Shift
The interaction of these pressures is likely to result in a longer-term paradigm shift in our
education systems – including the organisation and form of educational institutions and curricula
and the pedagogic approaches to learning and knowledge development.
This paper will elaborate on these hypotheses. In the final, and perhaps speculative section of the
paper I will put forward some ideas what a new education system might look like. I believe that if
the hypotheses and scenarios I advance in this paper are accepted, it is important that we begin
now to discuss how we can shape an education system which meets the needs of learners and the
wider needs of society in the future.
Values, cultures and organisation
Of course one of the features of paradigms, particularly in social fields such as education, is that
they seem almost ‘natural’ to participants. We fail to appreciate that there are radically different
alternatives and that systems are socially shaped. Even in education and training systems in
Europe there are quite different base assumptions in values, cultures and organisation. I once
spent some time trying to explain to an incredulous head teacher in Spain that school heads in the
UK were appointed and not elected. He could not accept that an externally appointed head would
have the authority to run a school. And at the same time I found it hard to persuade a UK head
teacher that elected heads could have authority within their institution.
2. The industrial model of schooling
The present ‘industrial’ model of schooling evolved to meet the needs and form of a particular
phase of capitalist industrial development. At least in the UK, prior to the industrial revolution of
the 1840s the schooling model was not the predominant form of education. Education was the
preserve of the privileged few, based on class and wealth. Parents hired tutors for home schooling
for their sons and (less often) daughters. The church provided what schooling there was. Indeed
until as late as the nineteenth century, all university fellows and many schoolmasters were
expected or required to be in holy orders. Schoolmistresses typically taught "the three Rs"
(reading, writing and 'rithmatic) in dame schools, charity schools, or informal village schools
(Wikipedia, 2007). However, the majority of young people had little formal schooling. That is not
to say they did not learn. But, learning was through what we would now call work based or
practice based learning. In a predominantly rural economy this took the form of helping in the
family smallholdings from an early age. Apprenticeship was the main way of learning in the
mainly town based craft trades. Occupational choice was (as it still is often today) based on
parental occupation.
The industrial revolution imposed new requirements in terms of skills and knowledge – in
particular the need to extend general education to much wider layers of society. But, in the UK, it
was not until 1893 that the Elementary Education (School Attendance) Act raised the school
leaving age to 11 and 1902 that the state took over education, through the organisation of Local
Education Authorities and the provision of funding for schools from taxation. It is notable that
there was opposition to these reforms based variously on the idea that this would make the
labouring classes ‘think’ and could lead to revolt and that handing children to a central authority
could lead to indoctrination. These reforms were based on a perceived need for Britain to remain
competitive in the world by being at the forefront of manufacture and improvement.1
Organisation and pedagogy

Figure 1: A traditional school building in the UK

The form of organisation of schooling and the predominant pedagogy were based on the forms of
production developed through the industrial revolution. Schools resembled large scale factories
for knowledge, organised into different departments with a foreman or woman in control of each
class and an overall manager in charge of the school (in older industrial cities in the UK it is
sometimes hard to distinguish between old schools and factories). Classroom monitors (or
prefects) acted as overseers. Students sat at desks organised in rows. Work was to take place with
set starting and finishing times each day. Bells would announce the start and end of rest periods
(or breaks).

1
Some of the speeches and documents of the time bear an uncanny resemblance to debates
around the European Union’s Lisbon Declaration
Figure 2: A 19th Century Classroom
Curriculum
The curriculum was closely tied to the needs of industry. In the early years of the 19th century the
major emphasis was on basic skills and literacy. The following table shows the six Standards of
Education contained in the Revised code of Regulations, 1872
Table 1
STANDARD I
Reading One of the narratives next in order after monosyllables in an elementary reading
book used in the school.
Writing Copy in manuscript character a line of print, and write from dictation a few
common words.
Arithmetic Simple addition and subtraction of numbers of not more than four figures, and
the multiplication table to multiplication by six.
STANDARD II
Reading A short paragraph from an elementary reading book.
Writing A sentence from the same book, slowly read once, and then dictated in single
words.
Arithmetic The multiplication table, and any simple rule as far as short division (inclusive).
STANDARD III
Reading A short paragraph from a more advanced reading book.
Writing A sentence slowly dictated once by a few words at a time, from the same book.
Arithmetic Long division and compound rules (money).
STANDARD IV
Reading A few lines of poetry or prose, at the choice of the inspector.
Writing A sentence slowly dictated once, by a few words at a time, from a reading book,
such as is used in the first class of the school.
Arithmetic Compound rules (common weights and measures).
STANDARD V
Reading A short ordinary paragraph in a newspaper, or other modern narrative.
Writing Another short ordinary paragraph in a newspaper, or other modern narrative,
slowly dictated once by a few words at a time.
Arithmetic Practice and bills of parcels.
STANDARD VI
Reading To read with fluency and expression.
Writing A short theme or letter, or an easy paraphrase.
Arithmetic Proportion and fractions (vulgar and decimal).

The system evolved to provide a basic technical education for the majority (through Secondary
Modern Schools) and a more advanced academic education in grammar for a minority
progressing to university. Selection of schooling route was heavily class based.
Mobility was relatively low. Most people worked and lived in the city, town or village in which
they were born. Socialising took place at a local level, based on networks formed at school and at
work.
Reforms and modernisation
Of course, there were continuing change and reforms in the education system throughout the 20th
century. In the UK, perhaps the most notable were the move to end the 11 plus entrance
examination for grammar schools and the establishment of comprehensive schooling and the
move towards mass university education heralded in then Prime Minister James Callaghan’s 1976
‘Ruskin speech’ which argued for society's right to have a say in what was taught in schools -
through establishing a "core curriculum of basic knowledge".2 Such reforms reflected the
changing needs of industry and the economy at the time.
Taylorist organisation
Despite the reforms, the paradigmatic forms of organisation and delivery of education, the
institutional form of schooling, the development of curriculum and approaches to pedagogy were
based on the Taylorist organisation of production stemming form the industrial revolution.
3. The challenge of the Digital revolution
It is this paradigm which is being challenged by the digital revolution. The challenge comes form
many different directions – indeed it could be characterised as a ‘perfect storm’. In this short
paper I will look at two aspects of the pressure: firstly, the demand for lifelong learning, and
secondly, the changing forms of knowledge production, and thirdly the different cultural
approaches to learning amongst young people. Theses pressures reflect the changing forms of
knowledge production within society, facilitated by the implementation of web 2.0 technologies
but also as a response to new demands for knowledge production within society3.

2
Interestingly, this speech is still quoted on Tony Blair’s 10 Downing Street web site
Lifelong Learning
Lifelong learning is hardly a new idea. Arguably, the idea of lifelong learning was originally
rooted in the workers movement. In the UK, the Mechanics Institutes, the Miners Halls and
organisations like the Workers Educational Association (WEA) organised classes and courses for
workers to improve their own education as well as providing access to learning resources and
social activities. Whilst this provision might aim at developing technical and labour market
related skills and knowledge, it was guided by a wider belief in the power of education for
emancipation. The more recent focus on life long learning, in say the last thirty years, has been
guided by a far narrower discourse. Driven by a shorter product life cycle, the increasing speed of
adoption and implementation of new technologies in the workplace and the increasing instability
of employment with the computer driven industrial revolution, it was reasoned that workers
would need continuous learning throughout their work-life to update their occupational skills and
knowledge or to learn new occupational competences. It was contestable as to who would be
responsible for this. Whilst previously continuing vocational training had been the responsibility
of employers, and the state was seen as playing a leading role in the provision of continuing
education and training, it was now often argued that individuals were responsible for maintaining
their own employability, albeit sometimes with the assistance of grants, vouchers and subsidised
courses.
If not continuous, learning is now seen as multi episodic, with individuals spending occasional
periods of formal education and training throughout their working life.

However, despite the rhetoric in most countries there is little evidence of real moves to support
Lifelong Learning. Indeed the discourse of lifelong learning has come to be dominated by the
idea of employability. Far from facilitating and supporting lifelong learning, the concept of
employability seeks to place responsibility for continuing learning and the updating of skills and
competences for the individual on the learner themselves, without requisite levels of support.
More liberal discourses have embraced the idea of social inclusion, yet all too often social
inclusion merely seeks to reintegrate individuals within the systems which have failed them in the
first place. Education systems have failed to extend opportunities for learning outside the
institutions and into wider layers of society at a widespread level.

How we use computers for learning

The most compelling challenge to our present systems of education and training and the major driver of
change may be the changing ways learners (young people in particular but by no means just young people)
are using computers for learning.
Information navigation
John Seely Brown in a speech in 1999, looked at the new dimensions of “learning, working and
playing in the digital age”. One dimension he drew attention to was literacy and how it is
evolving. The new literacy, the one beyond text and knowledge, he said, is one of information
navigation.
Linked to this was learning and how that is shifting. He pointed to the growth of discovery or
experiential learning. As kids work in the new digital media, he said, rather than abstract logic,
they deploy Bricolage. Bricolage relates to the concrete and has to do with the ability to find
3
See, for instance the European Union Lisbon declaration which declared the aim of Europe being the
most advanced knowledge based economy in the world and also promoted the use of digital technologies
for learning and knowledge production.
something – an object or a tool, a piece of code, a document - and to use it in a new way and in a
new context. But to be a successful bricoleur of the virtual rather than the physical you have to be
able to decide whether or not to trust or believe these things. Therefore the need for making
judgements is greater than ever before.

Figure 3: Students involved in a robotics project in Germany

Navigation is being coupled to discovery and discovery being coupled to bricolage but you do not
dare build on whatever you discover unless you can make a judgement concerning its quality or
trustworthiness.
The final dimension Seely Brown addressed was that of action. He suggests new forms of
learning are based on trying things and action, rather than on more abstract knowledge. “Learning
becomes as much social as cognitive, as much concrete as abstract, and becomes intertwined with
judgement and exploration”.
Seely Brown’s early study has been reinforced by research by Lenhart and Madden for Pew
Research (2005). The study found that 56 per cent of young people in America were using
computers for ‘creative activities, writing and posting of the internet, mixing and constructing
multimedia and developing their own content. 12 to 17-year-olds look to web tools to share what
they think and do online. One in five who use the net said they used other people's images, audio
or text to help make their own creations. Commenting on the study Lee Raine (BBC, 2005), said:
"These teens were born into a digital world where they expect to be able to create, consume,
remix, and share material with each other and lots of strangers."
Social networking
In recent years many young people have established accounts on social networking sites
including Bebo, Facebook and MySpace. Services such as Facebook are targeted particularly for
students. Such social networking services provide tools for content creation and sharing and for
developing networks of friends.
A recent survey for Pew Research4 (Lenhart and Madden, 2007) found that:
• 55% of online teens have created a personal profile online, and 55% have used social
networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.
• 66% of teens who have created a profile say that their profile is not visible to all internet
users.
• 48% of teens visit social networking websites daily or more often; 26% visit once a day,
22% visit several times a day.
• Older girls ages 15-17 are more likely to have used social networking sites and created
online profiles; 70% of older girls have used an online social network compared with 54% of
older boys, and 70% of older girls have created an online profile, while only 57% of older
boys have done so.

Figure 4: My Space
Identity production
In a speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Danah Boyd, (2006)
said many teens access MySpace at least once a day or whenever computer access is possible.
“Teens that have a computer at home keep MySpace opened while they are doing homework or
talking on instant messenger. In schools where it is not banned or blocked, teens check MySpace
during passing period, lunch, study hall and before/after school. This is particularly important for
teens who don't have computer access at home.”
Boyd went on to look at the issue of identity production in on line social networking
environments. “The dynamics of identity production play out visibly on MySpace. Profiles are

4
It is a shame that the surveys being undertaken by Pew Research are limited to the USA. Similar work in
other countries and cultures would be extremely useful.
digital bodies, public displays of identity where people can explore impression management.
Because the digital world requires people to write themselves into being, profiles provide an
opportunity to craft the intended expression through language, imagery and media.”
As Boyd point out public spaces on the internet are critical to the coming-of-age narrative
because they provide the framework for building cultural knowledge.
Learning?
Of course, there is an issue as to how much learning takes place through participation and
engagement in social networking sites. However, the failure of the education providers to engage
with this activity risks schools and other educational institutions becoming irrelevant to the
culture of discourse for young people and to the way in which young people interact and
exchange ideas.

Figure 5: Relations in a social network

There are a number of studies which examine (informal) learning through social networks and
on-line discussion. In a recent study, (Creer, 2007) socio-economically disadvantaged teens were
given computers and access to a database that offered reminders for care, information, and
discussion boards.
A study of the use of the site found the teenagers used the online resources, particularly the
discussion boards. The community offered was particularly important to teens.
In her book “I Found It on the Internet: Coming of Age Online”, librarian Francis Jacobson
Harris (2007) explores “environments in which people use communication technology to access
information, manipulate it, transform it, and exchange it.” Harris focuses on the idea that
technologies can help teens do their job, which is “to develop a sense of identity and of
community.” “Our professional literature is replete with how-to manuals for teaching with
technology and running technology-based libraries. But we still must come to terms with the way
kids perceive the world as a result of growing up with digital technology.”
It is interesting to note that new teachers have grown up themselves with social networking tools.
However Christopher Sessums (2007) says: “Most of our conventional f2f students are young and
new to teaching. A majority have MySpace and Facebook accounts so they are familiar with
social media/social networking technologies, yet often keep these technologies separate from
their professional practice. Many of these student teachers see no connection between their
personal use of the Read/Write Web (pdf) and their professional use.”
The use of computers for learning in Small and Medium Enterprises
Lest it be thought that the use of technology for social networking and informal learning is
limited to the so-called ‘net generation’, a study of the use of ICT for learning in Small and
Medium Enterprises (Attwell, 2007) found that whilst there was little evidence of formal e-
learning computers were being widely used for informal learning through amongst other things
participation in networks and distributed communities of practice. Furthermore, there was some
evidence that older workers were more likely to participate in such activities (probably because of
more autonomy in how they undertook their work). It was also noteworthy that in addition to
being motivated by the need to solve work based problems, much of the participation was driven
by personal interest.
3. How are education systems reacting to the challenge?
In the last section I outlined two key challenges to education and training systems: the need to
facilitate and support life long learning and the changing cultural and pedagogic ways in which
young people are using technology for learning.
How are education systems reacting to the challenge? At the level of primary education the
record seems reasonable. Primary education in most countries fulfils the role of providing basic
skills in reading and writing – and, increasingly, digital literacy, and in providing a social
environment for children to interact. Pedagogic approaches include story telling, group work, pay
and project based learning – all of which support Seely Brown’s concept of bricolage. Despite
various pressures (including that of finance) universities appear reasonably functional in terms of
societal demands. At the lifelong learning level we have already noted the limited discourses and
failure to support the broadening of support for learning to wider sections of the population.
However it is at the level of post primary – or secondary education that the systems seem to be
particularly challenged. It is notable that at least in Europe almost every system is in the process
of reforming post 10 or post 11-year-old education systems and provision. The problem is that
these reforms are not working. Despite the relatively high investment in education, the proportion
on non achievers remains persistently high, teachers are often disillusioned, employers complain
about the low levels of skills and competence form school graduates and many young people,
when questioned, are less than enthusiastic about school. At best, it is just a hurdle which has to
be jumped in order to progress on in their lives. Continued reform avoids the issue that post-
primary education systems and institutions are dysfunctional within today’s culture and society.
Dysfunctional systems
I want to draw attention to three particular aspects of such dysfunction of secondary education
schooling systems.
Educational Technology
The first is in the development an implementation of educational technology. The previous
section has detailed the ways in which young people are using technology for creating and
sharing and for social networking. However, the major implementations of educational
technology have been not to encourage such networking and creativity but to manage learning
and to isolate networks. Learning management Systems are WSYWYG – they do what they say,
manage learning. Systems have been developed as a ‘walled garden’, to perpetuate the isolation
of the school form the wider outside community.
We tend to recreate with new technologies older social forms of organisation. Thus we talk of the
virtual classroom or the virtual university, attempting to recreate and preserve the old paradigm of
education with new technical forms. Even in SecondLife, a multi player 3D virtual world,
universities have been investing heavily in buying islands to recreate in 3D form their building
and classrooms.

figure 6: Sign in a computer classroom in the USA

And most education systems have acted with at best suspicion and often downright hostility to
social networking systems and technologies. In the USA a bill is proceeding through Congress to
ban access to social networking sites form public institutions. In Europe we insist that young
people turn off their mobile phones to prevent them texting friends in school. Yet these are the
very systems and tools which businesses are increasingly seeing as central to future knowledge
creation and distribution!
Particularly notable is the continuing moral panics over young peoples’ use of technology. There
would appear to be more studies of sexual predators on sites like MySpace than actual proven
instances. Danah Boyd (2007) notes: “Moral panics are a common reaction to teenagers when
they engage in practices not understood by adult culture. There were moral panics over rock and
roll, television, jazz and even reading novels in the early 1800s.”
Networking, sharing and collaboration
The second aspect of the dysfunction of secondary education is in relation to the culture of
networking, sharing and collaboration. Web 2.0 applications and social software are increasingly
being used for knowledge development and sharing and for cultural interchange and networking.
Research in economic development advances the idea of the learning region based on
collaboration between enterprises and between enterprises and other social institutions. The
theory of connectivism states that learners are actively attempting to create meaning through
engagement in networks (Siemens, 2005)
Yet the schooling model remains rigidly tied to the idea of developing and assessing individual
attainment. Of course, the idea that we should enable each individual to develop to their full
potential is laudable as asocial goal. But if knowledge and creativity is dependent on engagement
within wider social networks then how can this be developed within education systems based on
individual attainment (I will talk more about the issue of assessment later in this paper).
Curriculum
The third illustration of how education and schooling systems are dysfunctional relates to
curriculum. Most learning does not take place in formal educational programmes. Jay Cross
(2006) argues that only 10 -15 per cent of learning is formal, that 85 per cent of our learning takes
place outside of formal settings. Learning is taking place through engagement in social networks,
both learning by young people of school age and learning from older people in work.
Furthermore learning takes place in multiple contexts, in work, in the community and in the home
as well as in school. Yet our schooling systems remain wedded to attainment against a narrow
curriculum of formal knowledge. Informal learning is hardly acknowledged, less still fostered and
facilitated.
4. Reschooling society - engaging with learners
We face the danger that school may become irrelevant for the very day lives (and learning) of
many young people. How can we overcome such dysfunction?
Josie Fraser (2007) has looked at how Web2 tools and applications are currently being used to
supplement the limitations of Learning Management Systems (or Virtual Learning
Environments). In common with many educational technology researchers she is interested in the
concept of a Personal Learning environment (PLE). A PLE has been seen as a concept of what we
want learners to be able to do in directing their own learning, in terms of self empowerment. It
recognises that learners exist in an ecosystem, and in that ecosystem they have some
computational tools, the PLE. The PLE is the system (or multiple systems) that enable and
support the growth of and behaviour of self-directed or self motivated learners. Josie Fraser sees
such a development as a move from Adaptive Personalisation to Dynamic personalisation.

Figure 7: from Adaptive Personalisation to Dynamic personalisation (Josie Fraser, 2007)

Learning Management Systems, as they currently stand, she says, “can deliver two elements of
personalisation – they deal well with delivering, monitoring and recording institutional provision
and procedure, although you’d have to argue out on the ground how well they cope with the
customisation. Web2 applications offer a quick solution to the far more difficult issue of how
institutions might engage with and support student-led participation.”
Critical to such an understanding is a basic paradigm shift from learners engaging with
institutional provision and procedures to the institution engaging with the learner. This would
imply that institutions have to recognise the new cultures of learning and networking and engage
with those cultures.
Yet that involves profound change in institutional practice and procedures and institutional
organisation and in curriculum organisation and pedagogic approach. It is those changes that are
the subject of the penultimate section of the paper.
A new role and new forms of organisation for education
Critical to engagement (or re-engagement) and support of institutions with learner-led
participation is to end the schooling culture whereby schools have been isolated from wider forms
of community and social discourse, knowledge development and sharing. The present
organisation of schools and education institutions cannot achieve this. Instead we have to rethink
the role of educational provision and support or learning within communities and wider society.
The following ideas for how this could be done are advanced as initial thing in order to promote
such a debate.

Figure 8: Informal Learning Spaces in a new school building (Source: JISC)

Community learning Centres
Instead of the present schools we could envisage the idea of Community Learning Centres. These
would be support centres open to all ages of learners - at least form the age of 11 or 12 upwards -
although there is a case for maintaining separate primary learning provision. Critically such
centres would be networked allowing access support for learning presently only available in
specialist schools or in Higher Education Institutions, within the community.
Project based learning
Learners would work on projects combining elements from different subjects. Individual learning
plans would be developed through a Personal Learning Environment with the support of what is
now called teachers. Such projects would be undertaken in teams with ‘teachers’ facilitating
learning. Teams could be geographically based but might well include participants from other
Community Learning Centres and from other countries participating through networked
communication. Although this might seem far-fetched, many young people participate in on-line
communities involving participants form different countries in their leisure time.
Projects would include the wider community including community based organisations and
enterprises.

Figure 9: Drama and computers project in Germany

Open Educational Resources
Learners would be able to access federated (or central) repositories of Open Educational
Resources. New resources, created by ‘teachers’ to meet the particular need of a learning task
would be added to such a repository.
Personal Learning Environments
Progress and attainment would be recorded in the group and individual Personal Learning
Environment. Learners a-would be encouraged to produce regular presentations of their work,
which would be shared on line and also provide a resource both for other learners and for the
broader community.
Mixed age learning
Community Learning Centres would support wider community resources including provision for
adult learners and support for single parents. Parents and retired people would be encouraged to
assist with the learning provision. The local community, with regular and open meetings to
discuss management and future development, would control centres.
Buildings would be designed to facilitate interaction between small groups of learners, providing
privacy and quiet for intense activities but also encouraging transparency and communication. It
goes without saying that they would also provide access to bandwidth and to Information and
Communication Technologies.
Higher Education
Higher Education providers would be given a new role in supporting networked Community
Learning Centres. But with more learning occurring at local level, and learners participating in
the network of centres as a whole, not an individual institution, they would also be able to return
to their core role as centres of research (with that research shared under Creative Commons and
Science Commons licences).
Whilst negotiated learning plans would recognise the need for breadth of learning, they would
also take into account the particular interests of individual learners.
Motivation
Hopefully over a period of time the motivation for learning would cease to be compulsion, but
rather the opportunity for participation in learning activities. However, it may be that we have
advanced the leaving age for full time education too far young people form say 14 or 15 should
be offered the opportunity to undertake paid work whilst learning.
Assessment
Present assessment is usually based on individual achievement. This is a substantial barrier to
collaboration, reflection and feedback and to project based group work. Rick Stiggins (2004)
distinguishes between the assessment of learning and assessment for learning. The assessment of
learning seeks to discover how much have students learned as of a particular point in time.
Assessment for learning asks how can we use assessment to help students learn more. Moving to
assessment for learning would allow the introduction of wider forms of assessment including
group, peer and self assessment.
5. End notes
Are the ideas in this paper utopian? I do not think so. The development of Personal Learning
Environments is not a major impossibility - indeed we already have prototype applications -
although more work needs to be done in the area of provision of services. There are many
examples of innovative projects operating in similar ways to what I have described (including
projects working with socially disadvantaged learners). The problem is that such projects operate
where they can find space in the curriculum and institutional organisation, often with external
project funding, and where there are enthusiastic and skilled teachers. Of course generalising such
an approach will require Professional Development to enable teachers to play a very new role. It
will require reducing the control of institutions and the reshaping of learning provision. However,
the kind of scenarios I have described above can be found every day in kindergartens. If we can
do it for 3 and 4 year olds, why not for older learners?
Figure 10: The 100 Dollar computer
Finally, I wish to take up the argument that it is fine to talk about such ideas in rich western
societies but that in many countries learners lack access to basic even education. According to the
Theory of Uneven and Combined Development (Trostky, 1980) “The privilege of historic
backwardness permits, or rather compels, the adoption of whatever is ready in advance of any
specified date, skipping a whole series of intermediate stages.” For those countries without an
advanced schooling organisation it may be possible to jump such a stage of development and
directly implement Personal Learning Environments integrated within the community. Indeed,
the implementation of the One Computer per Pupil programme is a step towards using advanced
computers and social networking for learning. Further, it could be suggested that oral traditions of
story telling to be found in many African cultures offer a potentially strong pedagogic approach
to knowledge sharing and learning through social networks and one that we may have to
rediscover in the technologically advanced western countries.
Bibliography
Attwell G.(ed) 2007, Searching, Lurking and the Zone of Proximal Development, e-learning in
Small and Medium enterprises in Europe, Vienna, Navreme
BBC (2005) US youths use internet to create,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4403574.stm, 4 November 2005, accessed 20 April 2007
Creer, J. (2007) Teens can use the internet to manage diabetes,
file:///Users/grahamattwell/Library/Application
%20Support/Firefox/Profiles/wdiy182g.default/zotero/storage/8837/teens-can-use-the-internet-to-
manage-diabetes.html, accessed 20 April
Boyd, D. (2006) Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace,
http://www.danah.org/papers/AAAS2006.html, accessed 20 April
Fraser J (2007) Open Complimenting Closed?,
http://eduspaces.net/josiefraser/weblog/169960.html, assessed 14 May 2007
Harris F.(2007), I Found It on the Internet: Coming of Age Online”, American Library
Association
Lenhart A and Madden M, (2005) Teen Content Creators and Consumers, Pew Internet,
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Teens_Content_Creation.pdf, accessed 21 April 2007
Lenhart A and Madden M (2007), Teens and Social Networking, Pew Internet,
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_SNS_Data_Memo_Jan_2007.pdf, accessed 20 April
Seely Brown J. (1999) Learning, Working & Playing in the Digital Age: Creating Learning
Ecologies, Transcription of a talk by Brown at the 1999 Conference on Higher Education of the
American Association for Higher Education. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_edu/seelybrown/,
accessed 25 July, 2004
Sessums C (2007) Learning Technologies, Teacher Education, and Social Media,
http://eduspaces.net/csessums/weblog/169433.html, BBC (2005) US youths use internet to create,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4403574.stm, 4 November 2005, accessed 20 April 2007
Siemens, G (2004) A Learning Theory for the Digital Age,
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm, accessed 20 April 2007
Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution (Monad Press: New York, 1980), Vol. 1