This article characterizes the Internet as a powerful constructivist environment for learning. It is an organic system which grows and responds to human participation. A virtual library, the Internet provides abundant information resources. But unlike a library, the Net is a potent environment for generative learning where participants, through interaction, add value to the resources they exploit. The flexibility of collaborative environments provides scaffolding for learners in times of rapid change where standard instructional approaches can be less than adequate. The power of the Net is exploited by crafted learners using collaborative strategies and sophisticated cognitive tools.
Imagine an open-architecture environment in which the information resources of any classroom, laboratory, research library, or agency can be made available immediately, to anyone who wants it, anywhere in the world. Imagine following a hypertext thread, traversing multiple documents on multiple systems, stretching across multiple continents, in multiple data formats, from pictures, to sounds, to discussion groups, to executable programs. Such an architecture exists today. It is called the World Wide Web. The Web is easily accessed with the help of powerful browsing tools available free of charge.
Imagine an open, collaborative forum in which anyone, in search of an idea or seeking a solution to an engaging problem, could freely consult with other knowledgeable practitioners, tapping the minds seasoned professionals within a knowledge domain. Such a forum exists. It is called USENET.
The Internet can be seen as a system of distributed processors arranged in client-server relationships. Thousands of servers are available 24 hours a day, waiting to respond to client requests for information. The nature of each service will vary from one server to the next. Shakespeare's complete works are provided from a server at Essex. A gopher at Illinois tracks weather satellites and updates daily weather conditions in the fifty states. From Minnesota is a meta-gopher with a list of all gopher servers in the world. Other meta-indexes can identify hundreds of services at a glance, shortening one's search path to specific information.
As individuals gain connection to the internet, they find easy access to information and assistance. Like children introduced to a new neighborhood, users quickly discover the playgrounds and form relationships before parental barriers can be erected. The Internet has begun to weave a tightly-knit, global community, marked by collegial exchange and cooperation. It is a people-to-people exchange where communication is immediate and direct. Scholars exchange ideas within on-line colloquies. Professionals announce new developments to interested peers. Practitioners engage in free exchange of questions, answers, advice and observations.
There is no mystery why people cooperate. Groups of people exchange information for their mutual benefit. Cooperating agents, be they individuals or groups, share information in order to advance their own self interest (Axelrod, 1984). Cooperation begets influence (Burke, 1945). Influence on the Internet is not obtained through traditional means of promotion, such as advertising. Like potlach, influential participation requires contributions of self-evident value.
Commercial nodes on the World Wide Web illustrate the rhetoric of this ritual. Companies are offering practical, valuable information for anonymous access by anyone. An example can be seen in the recently adopted Small Systems Computer Interface (SCSI-II) Standard. National Cash Register Corporation (NCR) manufactures SCSI interface controller chips for the computer industry. During the evolutionary development of SCSI-II, NCR provided abundant, detailed engineering data for anonymous access by anyone in the technical community. This active involvement allowed NCR to influence the shape of the technology.
Unlike other mass media, the Internet is characteristic of an oral culture (December, 1993). Propagation of information is a function of "word-of mouth". How far a message spreads depends upon the value it hol ds to those who receive it (Strangelove, 1994). Writers who recognize value in a work will reference the monograph within their own contributions. Users who encounter particularly noteworthy information will tell others within their own sphere of influence. On the Internet there is no editorial board. Each user is her own editor. Each author, his own publisher.
Educational connections
The richness and variety associated with network resources brings with
it the promise of countless educational opportunities. The barriers between
the school and the outside world are collapsing as people make direct contact
in a forum which masks their age and presents them as virtual equals (Fishman & Pea, 1994). The classroom-Internet connection promises far more than a field
trip to the outside world. Learners become actors within this virtual community.
As the Internet finds its way into the classroom, the anguish over free access will become an issue for teachers. The anarchic nature of the Net is cause for concern to those who advocate curricular control. Educators responses to this challenge will vary. Some will preserve the local curriculum by restricting access altogether. Some will control network access, but will augment the curriculum with selected online materials. Some will allow learner access to certain database resources for purposes of developing research skills. Some will encourage peripheral participation within listserv and online newsgroups to acquaint students with authentic communities of practitioners. Some will allow active participation within multiple network communities for purposes of developing skills as good "netizens". Some will engage their students in independent or collaborative projects contributing to the body of public knowledge accessible on the World-Wide Web.
The continuum of possibilities with the Internet is not unlike that of most educational software. It can be viewed as a full technology ( Zucchermaglio, 1992) in which abundant textual and multi-media materials developed by teams of educators and scholars all over the world are pulled in across the network for classroom access. The aim would be to provide rich information about many different subjects for student consumption. Or it can be viewed as an empty technology in which the learner interacts with the medium, where the learner controls the environment, constructs knowledge in collaboration with others. The desired result would be worth-while contributions for network consumption. The Internet provides rich opportunities at both extremes.
Anyone who is attached to the network can set up a server, providing information resources to the world. Scores of new servers are brought into being each week. It is an open invitation for active learning, where learners are agents of knowledge making as well as recipients of knowledge transmission (Bruner, 1986). The World Wide Web is a fertile, generative environment (Hannafin, 1992) where individuals can create, elaborate, and otherwise represent knowledge.
Pask introduced a dialectic model for knowledge construction which applied to people engaged in conversation for purposes of learning. Appropriately, he coined the term, conversation theory. The model captures the essential philosophy of Lev Vygotsky (1962). Vygotsky and Pask were a generation and a continent apart, but they share a common zeitgeist. Like Vygotsky, Pask studied Marx and embraced a dialectic view of human social development. Vygotsky's work was in response to a Pavlovian view of knowledge (see Bruner, 1985). The work of Pask was in response to the operant conditioning tools suggested by Skinner.
Pask embraced the Vygotskian view that learning is, by nature, a social phenomenon; that new knowledge is constructed out of the interaction of people engaged in dialog; that learning is a dialectic process in which an individual tests a personally held concept against that of another until agreement is reached between them. Pask defined such agreement as public knowledge, the synthetic residue of the dialectic process. (Pask, 1975)
Gordon Pask proposed a mechanism which could engage people in focused conversation, and could capture the precipitate of public knowledge, archiving it to a knowledge base. The emerging database, called an entailment mesh, is the consequential heir of collaborative problem solving. This knowledge base is a ``living" organism which grows, changes and adjusts as people interact in the course of collaborative knowledge construction.
USENET is an organized structure within the Internet which embodies the essential elements of this Pask/Vygotskian model. It is a bulletin board system with thousands of topics, reaching out to millions of subscribers in more than 26 countries. A broad range of academic, technical and recreational subjects are represented in the form of conversations between people. Users, practitioners, and subject sophisticates interact together within specific news groups, exchanging information electronically.
USENET embodies the Vygotskian notion of social interaction between people who bring varying levels of expertise to a culture of technology. It is an environment which presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which learners grow into the intellectual life around them -- a virtual zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). Newcomers, engaged peripherally, can experience gradual enculturation into a practitioner community. By monitoring interaction between participants, observers pick up relevant jargon, discover issues of salience and discern established norms of the community (Collins, et al. 1988). This form of apprentice engagement can quickly yield an implicit sense of what is suitable discussion, what makes a relevant question, and what interactions are likely to elicit desired responses.
An active bulletin board is an expression of cognitive activity in context. It is an endless continuum of questions, answers, and clarifications about specific topics of interest or specific matters of urgency (see Lave & Chaiklin, 1993). For most questions, answers will be posted within hours. For many responses, there may be rebuttals. The answers to fundamental questions are stored in a database similar to the entailment mesh described by Pask. It is a database of FAQs (frequently asked questions).
A FAQ is the entailment of the process of collaborative problem solving in open-system environments. It is the distilled wisdom of a community of practitioners. The information found in FAQs is practical rather than theoretical, anchored in the context of real problems (Brown, et.al., 1989). The articles in a FAQ are straight forward and unpretentious. They tend to avoid pedantic indulgences sometimes found in instructional documentation. FAQs are maintained and updated frequently, usually once a month. FAQ archives should reflect the actual, current concerns of the user/practitioner community surrounding a specific topic.
To suggest that USENET is a rich learning environment is not to say that learners new to a given subject can simply login to an appropriate newsgroup and establish a well-structured tutorial relationship with more knowledgeable participants. USENET, like the World Wide Web, does not conform to traditional linear paradigms of knowledge where introductory information is found at some beginning point and more advanced concepts are to follow. Users would do well to approach USENET, not as a mechanism for teaching, but as an organism for learning (Lemke, 1993). This organism manifests itself through the contributions of each participant, and it potentially embodies the knowledge of every subscriber
Each active newsgroup is a changing, growing environment which effectively captures the new and dynamic aspects of a knowledge domain (see Spiro, 1991). It is precisely this dynamic nature that holds promise for a training system that anticipates new conditions and changing cultures. Flexible cognitive systems naturally emerge within trajectories of change. The rigidity associated with objective-based training cannot negotiate a moving target (Resnick, 1987; Lemke, 1993). Users are drawn to USENET in response to immediate problems, new situations, and new applications with respect to a knowledge domain.
There is a distinct culture that can be revealed when members of a practitioner group engage in conversation. Posted exchanges emerge from varied contexts of authenticity (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989). The ill-structured nature of the environment adds uninviting complexity to newcomers. However, sustained peripheral participation is rewarded with gradual enculturation. Newcomers encounter the culture directly. Intentional, conscious, and reflective observations are productive preludes to active participation (Lave & Wagner, 1991).
Ethnographic orientation is one useful strategy for initial encounters with a new group (December, 1993). (e.g.: Who are these people? What are the contexts that engage them in this forum? What is the language, the jargon, the distinct expressions of their culture? What topics attract the most attention? What aspects seem to be the most important?) Such observations can offset technical complexity. This kind of orientation is rarely encountered in traditional technical instruction. But having a grasp of the human connections to a knowledge domain can reveal to a learner her own context and schema with respect to the topic. These connections enable focused and productive inquiries to an otherwise nebulous realm of information.
Initial inquiries, those requiring more structured assistance, are most appropriately addressed to the archived database (FAQ). A well-developed FAQ can answer the majority of basic questions surrounding a topic. FAQs provide the kind of structure that facilitates introductory learning. Most FAQs include glossaries of terminology and high-level definitions of technical concepts associated with the topic. If further information is available in any form, the FAQ will likely point users to such supporting documentation. Cognitive tools with keyword search capabilities can shorten the path to desired information within a FAQ database.
If the FAQ cannot satisfy a new user's questions in any way, there is a possibility that the selected newsgroup is not the appropriate forum for inquiry. The user would do well to hunt for a more appropriate bulletin board. But how? There are so many groups with so many nebulous titles! The Internet's complexity is mitigated by an abundance of cognitive tools, freely available to anyone. Such tools have become the prosthetic complement to this powerful environment.
But mere possession of a set of tools does not deliver the power of its promise. The wonder of a tool becomes evident in the hands of a skilled craftsman. Sadly, the set of skills that enable a tool cannot be "downloaded" as easily as the tool itself. As with any tool, skill development with cognitive tools is a function of practice (Mayes, 1994).
Now, at the dawn of the post modern era, education and training are facing a similar crisis. Traditional models of instruction, such as ISD (see Dick & Carry, 1985; Gagne, Briggs & Wager, 1988; Hanum & Hansen, 1989), are breaking down within trajectories of change. The instructional systems design process -- analysis, design, development, evaluation, delivery -- cannot keep pace with the changing demands in the workplace. Those who must function in technical environments encounter constant, vexing change. The tools that were used to design our products nine months ago have been revised or replaced. And the technicians who use them are faced with new skill requirements. Training that is delivered in the workplace today was designed from an analysis of outmoded tasks. Paradigms which place formal instruction between the task and the learner are experiencing their last days. Learners are forced to assume more active roles in the process of knowledge acquisition.
Up-to-date knowledge surrounding technical topics abounds within the confines of cyberspace. And the Internet is inhabited by knowledgeable practitioners, anxious to collaborate and willing to share information. But the efforts necessary to make meaningful contacts, and the skills required to extract basic information are not trivial. The process involves cognitive strategies used by crafted learners wielding sophisticated cognitive tools. The process is not unlike that of students conducting basic research in a university library. It requires clear objectives, persistence, and the ability to adjust strategies as needed within the problem space. It requires a willingness to grapple with new tools -- tools which may confound the process initially, but which, in the long run, may greatly facilitate the process of information retrieval.
People who are new to this mode of learning will require scaffolding until they master the art of self-directed inquiry. Beneficial use can be made of tutors and experienced co-workers, modeling the strategies and coaching new learners in this environment. Training would focus, not on domain-specific information, but on skill development with cognitive tools in self-directed learning environments. Metacognition, the ability to direct, monitor, and adjust one's own learning strategies, looms as an essential skill in the contemporary workplace.
Notes
Web Browsing Tools
World-wide does not mean "universal".
The internet is not presently accessible to 3rd world peoples.
Meta-indexes:
Notable meta-indexes for online information include:
To: www-literature@eit.COM
Subject: hypertexted Coleridge poems
Date: Fri, 04 Mar 94 17:45:01 -0800
From: marj@iris90.biosym.com
I have several S. T. Coleridge poems, which I had downloaded from the net
and then converted from ascii to html (no, not exactly my _work_, but I needed
_something_ interesting to learn emacs with!). I'd like to offer them back
to the Internet, but cannot do it directly from here (semi-permeable firewall).
I contacted people at gopher.cc.columbia.edu and microworld.media.mit.edu (where
I got the poems from) a couple of weeks ago, but they haven't responded yet.
So if any of you want to make them available to the internet by an http server,
I'd like to get the poems to you by ftp or email so that you can.The poems
are:
Dejection: An Ode from Columbia gopher Kubla Kahn from Columbia gopher Rime of the Ancient Mariner from Columbia gopher Frost at Midnight from MIT (wais?) Work without Hope from MIT (wais?)By hypertexting, I mean both formatting and replacing the line numbers by NAME-type links. So people can link _to_ specific parts of the poems, but the line numbers don't show when the file is viewed with xmosaic or whatever. They also may have a couple of links to some annotations or translations that were originally part of the ascii files. I also proofed them against two different printed copies, so they should be free of typos.any takers out there?
thanks,
Marj Tiefert, Biosym Technologies, San Diego, California, USA
marj@biosym.com (...the usual disclaimer...)
* DISCLAIMER: Unless indicated otherwise, everything in this note is
* personal opinion, not an official statement of Biosym Technologies, Inc.
...the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where--...
-- S. T. Coleridge, 1795
"In the heaven of Indra there is said to be a network of pearls, so arranged that if you look at one, you see all the others reflected in it. In the same way, each object in the world is not merely itself, but involves every other object."Joseph Campbell (1976) describes "ten profound theories" from the Sutra, three of which lend themselves as metaphors to describe the World Wide Web:
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gopher://english-server.hss.cmu.edu/00ftp%3aEnglish%2aServer%3aLanguage%3aWittgenstein-Tractatus.
gopher://humanum.arts.cuhk.hk/00/humftp/ E-text/WestPhil/Wittgenstein/
tractatus.wit
.