The article by Trebor Scholz reminded me of how far we have come so quickly. Although a lot of the advancements were more about the technicalities and not about the imagination. I enjoyed the story about the first Mailing  List where “the second email on that list was an apology by the system’s administrator for doing such a lousy job in keeping up with everybody’s requests.” Little did they know what was coming.

George’s paper (Brief History of Network Learning) reminds us that the technology comes first eg the physical infrastructure. However, as mentioned throughout this blog, in many cases these tools have not yet led to a paradigm shift in how most education is done to students. Tools to assist the existing paradigm – the sage on the stage.

One of the better pieces I’ve read on this is from McLoughlin and Lee (Transforming Pedagogy through Social Software). They discuss traditional approaches to teaching which involve “prepackaged elarning materials, fixed deadlines and assessment tasks and criteria defined by teachers“. Whereas the challenge is to “enable self-direction, knowledge building, and learner control by offering flexible options for students to engage in learning that is authentic and relevant to their needs and to those of the networked society while still providing necessary structure and scaffolding.” The new Web 2.0 technologies will greatly assist the formation of these networks.