The New Alexandrian Libraries

Web 2.0: The New Alexandrian Libraries By Michael D. King

" We are moving away from a world in which some produce and many consume media, toward one in which everyone has a more active stake in the culture that is produced." The New Alexandrian Libraries of the Future

From the Internet’s inception its creators envisioned a universal substrate linking all mankind and its artifacts in a seamless, interconnected web of knowledge. This was the World Wide Web’s great promise: an Alexandrian library of all past and present information and a platform for collaboration to unite communities of all stripes in any conceivable act of creative enterprise.

As the sun begins to set on the 21st century, Americans are once again experiencing a profound and rapid shift–from the Industrial Age to the Information Age and into the Conceptual Age. American schools are experiencing what historians of the future will call the Third Revolution, a transition to a knowledge-based universal substrate of knowledge based linking of the internet to co-collaboration websites of the new Alexandrian libraries of the future. To secure the workplace of the future, young people will need the skills and knowledge base associated with Literacy 2.0 shared canvases, where every splash of painted knowledge provides a richer tapestry of in-depth understandings of the world in which they live. To succeed in education reform schools must be broadly driven by forward-thinking educational technology minded visionaries. These visionaries must articulate clear and compelling vision that articulate the optimal characteristics that encourage technology-supported education reform that focuses on preparing students to live, learn, and work in the 21st century. It is true that making this paradigm shift from the industrial age to the information age during a time of uncertainty finds many a scholar not sure just how Literacy 2.0 learning will serve in the improvement of national education. For more than two centuries, schools have used printed paper materials, such as textbooks, to educate students. With the development of Web 2.0 software applications participatory learning resources are reaching a limitless realm. Schools that are not presently tapping into these resources soon will find themselves left behind in their quest to improve the learning curve. This is not to say that Literacy 2.0 technology, alone, will educate today’s students. Technology is the tape measure in the toolbox that teachers can use to extend student learning opportunities. In order for schools to reach their vision for implementing school-based technology

learning programs schools must be empowered to draw the pathways to get from the present to the future. To ensure that students have a brighter future, educators must look at their traditional practices and expand beyond the status quo in order to kindle a spirit that unites all the stakeholders into a well designed Literacy 2.0 learning schooling. By cultivating enriched technological environments for learning where students are given more opportunities to work in participatory Web 2.0 settings establishes the confidence and trust needed for desired change. However, educational must first understand the strategies involved in allowing students to participate as co-creators of learning. To have a deeper understanding on how student co-creation of content immerse and engages the digital native teachers must gain confidence in technological advancesof Web 2.0 Learning and contribute new ideas for lesson design. Today the Internet is evolving from a network of standalone Web sites that enable schools to present information into a collaborative computing platform of expanding knowledge in its own right. Elements of a computer —and elements of a computer web 2.0 software application—can be spread out across the Internet and seamlessly combined as necessary to extend limitless knowledge. The Internet is becoming a giant computer that everyone can program, providing a global infrastructure for creativity participation, sharing, and self organization.

The Co-Creating Participatory Culture Co-Creating may become one of the most powerful engines of change and innovations that the education world will experience. Co-Creating with other educators across the nation is like tapping a knowledge pool of similar interest, a reservoir of creativity that may emerge through an enthusiastic wealth of talent producing warehouses of digital curriculum. It will not be an easy change and many tough challenges lie ahead to offset the standardized models of the existing rigors of traditional education. There is nothing wrong with mass co-creating, yet some see it as moving away from traditional practices of “drill and be drilled” forms of standardized learning. Many have argued that these new participatory cultures represent ideal learning environments. We can call such informal learning cultures “affinity spaces,” asking why people learn more, participate more actively, engage more deeply with popular culture than they do with the contents of their textbooks. Affinity spaces offer powerful opportunities for learning; Affinity spaces are distinct from formal educational systems in several ways. While formal education is often conservative, the informal learning within popular culture is often experimental.

A question of educational confidence begins to emerge as teachers who have traditionally been the frontal delivery masters of content are now questioned by forms of content validity. In this new of world of digital natives who will monitor exactness? Who will control the truest forms of knowledge for others to repeat the same paths of learning? Who will be the valedictorians of their class as individuals climb the latter to earn their rights

to prestigious degrees of higher learning? All of these questions will be pondered as the world becomes flat. In fact the gap between the development and use of technology is like crossing the grate digital divide of leaving all children behind. Are we now standing on the other side of the great digital divide looking for ways to bridge the gap? And is it too late to cross over? While formal education is static, the informal learning within popular culture is innovative. The structures that sustain informal learning are more provisional, those supporting formal education are more institutional. Informal learning communities can evolve to respond to short-term needs and temporary interests, whereas the institutions supporting public education have remained little changed despite decades of school reform. Informal learning communities are ad hoc and localized; formal educational communities are bureaucratic and increasingly national in scope. We can move in and out of informal learning communities if they fail to meet our needs; we enjoy no such mobility in our relations to formal education.

True co-creating does entail deeper knowledge of existing technology. Technology that is currently not prevalent in American schools, at least from the digital natives’ point of view. These cries for change are now beginning to take hold as the business world is for the first time recognizing a new workplace; a workplace where individuals use the network to drive company decisions and collaborate daily in a new Web 2.0 environment. The problems are even more alarming when education becomes highly standardized and learning moves distinctly away from creativity to mass customization for learning; limiting flexibility and relying on elements of creative thought. After all it was the Wright brothers who decided to fly after mashing together ideas about bicycles and creating new ideas about propulsion and wing designs. The Extended Learning Schools It is a fact that the extension of learning beyond the classroom is a long awaited concept to the post-holing of knowledge to deeper understandings. In Web 2.0 extended learning schools these opportunities for the extension of knowledge become realistic when applying participatory 2.0 literacy. Web 2.0 extended learning schools are founded on a different set of standards than those schools founded on traditional practices. The Web 2.0 extended learning schools are places where both the professional educators, students, parents and the community are engaged in active learning based upon Literacy 2.0 participatory goals. In the Web 2.0 school, the role of the educators is to seek out expanded technology based learning opportunities that benefit not only student learning but also the school as a whole and the improvement of the learning process. There are many factors that contribute to the Web 2.0 Extended Learning School, but one of the major factors is the development of a successful technology plan that inspires people to share their knowledge, collaborate on their knowledge, and finally develop their knowledge into a technology paradigm shift for the future.

The new Web 2.0 is different in its architecture for it now offers new applications where learners can share, create and contribute to new knowledge by direct participation rather than receiving passive information. True integration of technology into the learning process is a united effort among all constituents’ and educational leaders must layout a strategic plan for implementing technology into the school. These strategies should include the development of (1) Empowerment through an articulated vision to create a Web 2.0 extended learning opportunities for both teachers and students. To meet the challenge of the skills needed for the workforce of tomorrow, schools will need to realign their present visions by establishing new priorities that are linked to the new standards of co-creating environments in Web 2.0 collaborations. This does not mean that schools must change their beliefs; however, they must examine how their present beliefs support the challenges of required change. If schools are to be viewed as workforce providers of the future, then they must engage in strategic exploration of Web 2.0 potentials for the expansion and extension of knowledge. Web 2.0 extended learning schools cannot exist without a shared vision. Without a focus and commitment to some vision/goal that the schools truly want to achieve, the forces supporting the status quo can overwhelm the forces supporting meaningful change. With shared vision, the educators are more likely to expose their accustomed ways of thinking and redefine them in more cooperative and constructive terms, thereby recognizing personal and organizational shortcomings. Thus, developing a collective vision for the future of the virtual learning school is the first strategy to a systematic design for successful paradigm shift into the future. At its simplest level, a shared vision is the answer to the question, “What do we want to create?” Just as personal visions are pictures or images people carry in their heads and hearts, so too are shared visions pictures that people throughout the school carry because it reflects their own personal vision. Therefore, shared visions create a sense of community that permeates the school and gives purpose and meaning to diverse activities. Shared vision is vital for the virtual learning school because it provides the focus and energy for learning. In many school organizations, intoxicating rhetoric about visions and noble intentions usually abounds, but without a strategy for communicating those ideas, nothing will be realized. Achieving success will require more than rhetoric; it will require the capacity to communicate a compelling image of a desired state of affairs - the kind of image that induces enthusiasm and commitment in others. How do schools communicate their vision and future goals? How do they then get their stakeholders aligned behind those goals? The answers to these questions can be obtained through the management of meaning - or the mastery of communication. To master meaning through communications schools of the future will need to design architecture for Web 2.0 learning environments for the expansion of structured exact knowledge outside of the normal classroom day. These newly designed Web 2.0 architectures will

initiate all necessary points required for the planned implementation of methods addressing the issues of quality learning both at home and at school.

The bottom line is this: The unassailable, standalone (by itself) classroom is suddenly obsolete and exiting out the door. So say hello to a Literacy 2.0, the extended classroom for learning, that looks like an Alexandrian library but one that interacts and talks.