The Web and especially the modern variants such as Web 2.0 create an interesting kind of participatory medium, one where we can engage in productive inquiry around subjects that we are passionate about. Today, many of us prefer surfing the Web and exploring new information to passively watching TV. But many kids today do more than just explore: They create, tinker, share and build on each others creations. We are slowly reconstructing a culture of tinkering, which lays the foundation for a grounded understanding of theoretical topics that you learn about in school. Also, the Net helps you to not just learn about something but more importantly to learn to be something—to learn a practice, not just learn about the practice. For example, thousands of kids learn what it means to be a computer programmer by joining an open-source community such as Linux. What a great way to learn—acculturating into a practice. Such provides a new kind of apprenticeship, a distributed one where the community mind becomes the expert to which one apprentices.
John Seely Brown’s response to the question ‘How has the Web affected education to date and what do you anticipate will happen in the future as children use the Web at younger and younger ages? put to him by Lisa Neil eLearn Magazine
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