Knowledge, Technology, the Commons – Evolution of new Paradigms

Some of my learning from CBC ‘Ideas in the Afternoon’ on Feb 3, 2014. Can be found on the following website:

Ideas in the Afternoon

On my way back from Toronto the other day, a colleague had tweeted me about a great show on CBC radio. I had the opportunity to listen to a program from CBC ideas in the afternoon that was focusing on technology and learning, I believe it was called social is a killer app.

From when I picked up listening to the show they were talking about how everything is a commons: the information commons, the Wikipedia Commons etc., because were all coming together for common purposes. We are re-examining the rules and rediscovering new ways to do things and including using virtual spaces for the sharing of ideas.

We in this western world have the luxury of being able to engage in this kind of sharing.

Along with that comes the responsibility to be able to control ourselves.

Top down approaches actually stop things from happening because it is impossible to anticipate all needs.

The structures we have are older than the problems that we are facing. The structures are misaligned with our systems. We have begun a 30 to 40 year transformation. Innovators often come from the outside. Often the innovators look weird they don’t fit, but where innovation is going and the new flow of information there are new systems of information growing.

We have many people straining to return to the old and familiar ways and on the other end of the spectrum we have people gropings forward trying to find their way in a new world that we don’t yet know.

It is a different culture taking place in the commons and we’re starting to see big business versus government playing larger roles in these cultures. We have the opportunity to make this what we want versus choosing to have nostalgie about the old ways. It is about experimentation. What inspires you to learn? Using the Socratic dialogue, making learning community-based, doing what is important to us because it facilitates conversations in our social circles.

The worry is that the online spaces will be occupied by large companies, and the evolution of the Internet will ultimately be in favor of consumption versus mass collaboration and creation.

There’s a lot of catching up with the complexities of today. Knowledge is dynamic.

For instance Wikipedia will never be finished it is always changing and as it changes and grows it will just become more complex so the problems become how do we handle this complexity?

I am very passionate about knowledge building with technology. I love the idea that we need to create ever-changing movements as opposed to ‘institutions’ that are static. We now can consider fluid paradigms of knowledge and technology and flexibly apply to the unique education needs of our students.

Deborah McCallum