Jen Ross suggested I'd read the Sanger (2010) article in the WebCT discussion board. Sanger's article is partially a response to an earlier article by Brown and Adler (2008) that I enjoyed very much.

Sanger opens with the question how the internet is changing education, an interesting question indeed and one that I find a bit missing in the IDEL readings (so far). Sanger discusses three 'strands of thinking about education and the internet'.

1. 'Instant availability of information online makes the memorization of facts unnecessary or less necessary.'

2. 'The virtues of collaborative learning as superior to outmoded individual learning.'

3. 'The insistence that lengthy, complex books (...) are inferior to knowledge co-constructed by members of a group.'

In fact, only the second issue responds to Brown and Adler. Issue # 1 is more against Tapscott, while issue # 3 is against Shirky. All three arguments by Sanger are really off in my view, although he has the best of intentions.

The basic error that Sanger makes in all three arguments is that he more or less accuses his self chosen opponents that they claim the internet is replacing something. I did not do a word count on replace and substitute and their variations, but you'll find that these words are used a lot. Sanger misses the point that the 'fancy new set of tools' (p. 19) that the internet offers are extensions, a point that is also being made in one of the readings for this week (Cousin, when she paraphrases McLuhan that 'every kind of technology is an extension of our nervous system'.)

Memorization. I totally agree with what Sanger has to say here, it's just that I don't think that anybody seriously claims that we don't have to learn facts because we can look them up so easily on the internet. You need to have at least a basic understanding of a subject to be able to judge the facts. But once you have that, the internet is a great help. (And the invention of writing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaedrus_(dialogue) look for Thamus and Theuth) did not kill our memory, neither did the invention of the printing press.) And of course it is easy to come up with examples from education, especially from primary and secondary education where kids do an assignment by cutting and pasting from the internet. I am afraid that in most cases that was just the assignment they got. Kids usually do what you expect them to do. And of course, the internet is also great for debunking wrong facts or urban legends, like the one in the Barret / Carney for reading these weeks. Eskimos have many words for snow? Wrong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow).

Social learning. If I remember correctly from the Brown / Adler article, they don't cite really hard evidence that group learning leads to better results than individual learning (is there?). Yet again, Sanger makes the same move and posits that his opponents say that group learning should replace individual learning. Again, extension is the better word to understand what is going here. Sanger should know that, since he cites Brown / Adler as talking about 'extending education' (p.20). He goes on to state that you can read the Decamerone online, 'but you must mentally process it yourself' (ibid.). Of course, but discussing the Decamerone in a group will lead to a better understanding, especially if you don't have much background in medieval Italian literature. Sanger calls writing an 'essentially solitary act' (ibid.). It is, but writing a blog, or post that is being read by my fellow students surely is different from writing an assignment that is merely being glimpsed at by my tutor (as in most primary and secondary education). I am writing for an audience, so I need to choose my words carefully, and I might get feedback. On the same page, Sanger goes on to criticize online group discussion: 'My notion of a good scholar  - perhaps standards are changing - is someone who is capable of thinking independently'. I think it works the other way around: by engaging in critical discussion with others I learn how to discuss with myself.

Books. Again the word replacement. 'Is participating in online communities via social media a replacement for reading boring old books'. (p. 22) Social media extend my reading experience. I write small book reviews an publish them for my friends (most of whom are more professional acquaintances) on Facebook. I pick up ideas for reading from there. Another quote: 'Blog and Twitter posts, Wikipedia and YouTube contributions, which arguably weaken our attentional capabilities (...).' Uh no. My 50+ RSS feeds act as an important filter. Wikipedia came up as I tried to remember where it was that I heard that the Eskimo many words for snow story is bull. Sometimes I use YouTube as jukebox when discussing songs with my friends. And of course books are not being replaced, book sales go up and up every year. E-readers are taking off real fast now.

I have said it before, I see the technologies that are so rapidly developing among us as opportunities for enhancing learning experiences. But we need to learn how to put them to good use.

Sanger, Larry (2010), Individual Knowledge in the Internet, EDUCAUSE Review, March / April, http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM1020.pdf (Accessed November 2, 2010)

Brown, John Seely and Adler, Richard P. (2008), Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0 EDUCAUSE Review, January / February, http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0811.pdf (Accessed November 2, 2010)