Networked knowledge: challenges for teacher education [Editorial]

Abstract

Since 1990, the World Wide Web has caused an inversion in the information economy of education. Where a traditional view of education characterized teachers as dispensers of knowledge, the second half of the twentieth century witnessed a shift towards an alternative paradigm in which knowledge is viewed as constructed by the learner from personal and shared experience. In an information-rich environment, education is likely to be less about accumulating information and more about transforming it in ways that make it more useful. Although the evolution of a networked knowledge economy may eventually require responses in many aspects of education, at least three areas are already evident. These are questions of knowledge as property attaching to concepts such as copyright and plagiarism, development of processes and skills for effective collaboration, and the problem of assessment of student learning if it is accepted that knowledge may exist in the network rather than the individual.