Learning to be a Citizen of Cyberspace

Learning to be a Citizen of Cyberspace

Most researchers agree that the growth of a knowledge-based society will bring about fundamental changes in the production, distribution and exchange of information and that most every social and cultural institution will be changed in some way, but none more than education (Negroponte, 1995; Oppenheimer, 1997; Stevenson, 1997; Upitis, 1997). This is because, more than any other social institution, education is fundamentally about knowledge, information, and communication. Although it certainly makes use of material tools and sometimes results in the production of material goods, these are ancillary to the fundamental process of education: people use knowledge to create more knowledgable people.

It is therefore not surprising to find considerable support for transforming education so that it is as fully independent as possible from geographic location and physical space. If education does not require a specific spatial location or a building then it can be delivered from anywhere to anywhere. This will, some argue, transform the fundamental infrastructure of education at every level, starting particularly at the post-secondary level, and will fundamentally erode local community, or even national control over education. The development of on-line courses, libraries and other information resources, and the marketing of distant or on-line education by businesses and schools eager to profit from opportunities to expand their horizons, are the beginning of what some see as a revolution in learning. (Veccia, 1998; Wilson, 1997)

In addition to overcoming geographical constraints on the delivery of education, new technologies promise to expand the basic nature of education. In quantitative terms, computer communication is opening up vast new sources of information and learning by enabling on-line access that frees schools from complete dependence on paper delivery. Associated with this is the ability to link written with audio and visual material that can enrich the full range of the learner’s senses. The technology also creates a qualitative expansion in the means of education by taking a process rooted in the one-way delivery of knowledge and making it more participatory and reciprocal. Education moves from an emphasis on transmitting information to the active creation of knowledge. Moreover, according to this view, computer communication takes a system of learning based in narrow linear, narrative forms, and opens it up to a wide range of non-linear, exploratory processes that allow the learner to make full use of his or her own multiple cognitive maps. As a result students mutually constitute their learning environments, all of which grow in the learning process.