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 rise 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 of
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, education 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 advances of 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 Literacy 2.0, the
extended classroom for learning that looks like an Alexandrian library but one
that interacts and talks.

For more information on web 2.0 application in education see Tech N TuIt