Growing Up Digital
Immense political, social, and economical modifications that initiated in Europe during the second half of the 18th century, resulted in scientific developments, industrial revolution, and the period of enlightenment in this part of the world, which ultimately effected all of the people all around the globe. A significant phenomenon that we witnessed after the industrial revolution was the rapid and dramatic change in all dimensions of human life, such as science, humanity, and new ways of learning. In GROWING UP DIGITAL How the Web Changes Work, Education, and the Ways People Learn John Seely Brown discusses how a relatively newly invented tool, the Internet, has been affecting our lives since early 1960s, in just as dramatic a way, and more recently especially in the field of education.
Brown argues that Internet is an environment in which working, playing, and learning co-mingle. Internet provides us with the ability to “navigate through complex information spaces”. (p. 13) In addition, internet is a method of learning through informal teachings, and based on a series of repetitive actions. Another social impact of Internet is on the new generation, digital kids. The Internet has made it accessible to the new generation to “learn learning”. In order for powerful learning to occur you have to “look to both the cognitive and the social dimensions” (p. 17). And the only way to accomplish that is “two-way radios”. What makes this experimental environment of learning distinctive from any other is the almost intangible border between teaching and learning. In other words, we are all part consumers and part producers. We read and write on the Internet. Also based on this work, other inventions like Eureka (which makes ideas and stories more accessible within a community of people) and prototype system (a new way of capturing and storing video on a digital media server) can be very helpful tools of learning, which are only possible because of the web’s recent developments. In the end, Internet has created a discovery-based learning environment, that blurs the line between teacher and student, to great a collaborative unit.
