Review of "The Future of Learning in a New Free World and how to Build a World Wide Learning Web" by G. Dryden

Journal Review of “The Future of Learning in a New Free World and how to Build a World Wide Learning Web”

Ray Etheridge

Western Washington University

Dryden, G., (March 2004). The Future of Learning in a New Free World and how to Build a World Wide Learning Web. Retrieved from http://www.newhorizons.org/future/dryden.htm

Review

The article begins with a summary of the building blocks of the World Wide Web with an emphasis on free and open content and websites such as Linus, Netscape Navigator and Google. It then goes on to discuss the basics of what has driven economies in the past-land, labor and capital, and what drives them now-ideas, brainpower and information, specifically scientific information. The author then goes on to detail the current state of education in regards to computer use and fluency, which is that computers are typically used primarily in computer education and not in general education or other classrooms. He then discusses how the information revolution, free and open to all is being adopted by the younger generation who are now referred to as digital natives. These natives know how to upload, download, edit, access, explore and create using computer resources as easily and as early as their parents knew how to add, subtract and write their alphabet. He then details how teachers are creating some internet resources, such as online lesson plans and web-pages, but sharing them with very few users. He then calls on the education community to embrace these new technologies and learn from such nations as Singapore, who have wholeheartedly adapted the internet to supplement, not replace, instruction so much so that even during an outbreak of SARS, when schools were closed not one student missed their lessons or assignments. Rather than suggest that the technology be used to replace education he calls for it to supplement, support and accelerate it into the modern world, a world which needs students to be ever more scientifically adept and adaptable.

Overall I found the article prescience. Clearly the world is headed in this direction, and six years on much remains to be done. The article does possess some unique features, as a traditional article it is filled with improper writing conventions. Proper paragraph and article structure is almost entirely absent and while grammar and spelling is good it is filled with lists and other features that have been improperly used. This is not a problem nor does it distract from the effectiveness of the article unless one feels tradition bound to enforce them long past their expiration date. On the other hand the use of graphics, hyperlinks and other modern technological usages is also absent. The article, in word and appearance is at the cusp of the very sea change it is talking about. While published on a website it is still bound by the old forms and usages, sort of. Sadly, the most telling part of the article, that teachers and schools have yet to adapt to these new technologies except on a limited individual scale, for example, in the creation and then constant recreation of lesson plans and daily activities that modern cohorts of students at some of the most progressive schools in the country, are being ask to create anew is telling. Six years on modern students are still being asked to create something that should have been provided for them a priori as something for them to use, consider, reflect on and add to rather than have to recreate from scratch.