[Summary]
The information available in books stays “static”, whereas the
information available on the internet is regularly updated, thus the
need to change our relationship to knowledge. In 1996, more and more
computers connected to the internet were available in schools and at
home. Teachers began exploring new ways of teaching. Going from print
culture to digital culture was changing the way both teachers and
students were seeing teaching and learning. Print culture provided
“stable” information whereas digital culture provided "moving"
information, with information being regularly updated. During a
conference organized by the International Federation of Information
Processing (IFIP) in September 1996, Dale Spender, a professor and
researcher, gave a lecture on "Creativity and the Computer Education
Industry", with insightful comments on forthcoming trends.
***
The information available in books stays “static”, whereas the
information available on the internet is regularly updated, thus the
need to change our relationship to knowledge.
In 1996, more and more computers connected to the internet were
available in schools and at home. Teachers began exploring new ways of
teaching. Going from print culture to digital culture was changing the
way both teachers and students were seeing teaching and learning. Print
culture provided “stable” information whereas digital culture provided
"moving" information.
During a conference organized by the International Federation of
Information Processing (IFIP) in September 1996, Dale Spender, a
professor and researcher, gave a lecture on "Creativity and the
Computer Education Industry", with insightful comments on forthcoming
trends. Here are some excerpts:
"Throughout print culture, information has been contained in books --
and this has helped to shape our notion of information. For the
information in books stays the same -- it endures. And this has
encouraged us to think of information as stable -- as a body of
knowledge which can be acquired, taught, passed on, memorized, and
tested of course. The very nature of print itself has fostered a sense
of truth; truth too is something which stays the same, which endures.
And there is no doubt that this stability, this orderliness, has been a
major contributor to the huge successes of the industrial age and the
scientific revolution. (...)
But the digital revolution changes all this. Suddenly it is not the
oldest information -- the longest lasting information that is the most
reliable and useful. It is the very latest information that we now put
the most faith in -- and which we will pay the most for. (...)
Education will be about participating in the production of the latest
information. This is why education will have to be ongoing throughout
life and work. Every day there will be something new that we will all
have to learn. To keep up. To be in the know. To do our jobs. To be
members of the digital community. And far from teaching a body of
knowledge that will last for life, the new generation of information
professionals will be required to search out, add to, critique, 'play
with', and daily update information, and to make available the constant
changes that are occurring."
Robert Beard, a professor at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania, wrote in September 1998: "As a language teacher, the web
represents a plethora of new resources produced by the target culture,
new tools for delivering lessons (interactive Java and Shockwave
exercises) and testing, which are available to students any time they
have the time or interest -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is also
an almost limitless publication outlet for my colleagues and I, not to
mention my institution. (...) Ultimately all course materials,
including lecture notes, exercises, moot and credit testing, grading,
and interactive exercises will be far more effective in conveying
concepts that we have not even dreamed of yet.”
Russon Wooldridge, a professor at the Department of French Studies,
University of Toronto, Canada, wrote in February 2001: " My research,
conducted once in an ivory tower, is now almost exclusively done
through local or remote collaborations. (…) All my teaching makes the
most of internet resources (web and email): the two common places for a
course are the classroom and the website of the course, where I put all
course materials. I have published all my research data of the last 20
years on the web (re-edition of books, articles, texts of old
dictionaries as interactive databases, treaties from the 16th century,
etc.). I publish proceedings of symposiums, I publish a journal, I
collaborate with French colleagues by publishing online in Toronto what
they can't publish online at home. In May 2000, I organized an
international symposium in Toronto about French studies enhanced by new
technologies. (...) I realize that without the internet I wouldn't have
as many activities, or at least they would be very different from the
ones I have today. So I don't see the future without them."
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) officially launched its
OpenCourseWare (OCW) in September 2003 to put its course materials for
free on the web, as a way to promote open dissemination of knowledge.
In September 2002, a pilot version was available online with 32 course
materials. 500 course materials were available in March 2004, 1,400
course materials in May 2006, and all 1,800 course materials in
November 2007, regularly updated then, with some of them translated
into Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese with the help of other
organizations. MIT also launched the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCW
Consortium) in November 2005, as a common project for educational
institutions that were willing to offer free online course materials,
with the course materials of 100 universities worldwide one year later.