The Internet As An Engine Of The Modern Education: The Old Tool Gets Modernized

For many the Internet has become one of the major resources of information. For instance, it plays a key role in the education for an entire generation from Beijing to Palo Alto. The Internet gives a modern person an opportunity to move, collaborate and share (opinions, information etc.) on a completely new level. For the first time in history the world faces a situation in which the younger generation is acquiring tools much faster and denser than their ancestors. Obviously there is no need to explain how the online world works, you already know everything. So let’s look deeper into the matter of the online processes functioning.

To an end-user it seems like there is no hierarchy in the online world. You acquire the skills to surf the waves very easily thus an illusion that you’re your own boss in that world comes very fast. But if you look into this issue, most of the devices you buy: computers, tablets, cell phones, software that is pre-installed in them, embody quite specific development and are a result of certain human activity. In other words, everything that we’ve found out and comprehended from the network became available due to certain tools, created by other people for you. There is nothing bad about it. On the contrary it proves that in its essence the Internet as a tool has no innovations in itself. This is the way the world works, it has been like that and it will stay the same: on one hand you will be using the things that were done by people before you, on the other hand later in the process of cognition you will be able to create something yourself. Needless to say that acquiring this kind of knowledge is impossible without significant efforts. In order for the accumulated knowledge to form an intellectual potential, time is needed.

From my point of view the ability of an intellectual balance between two types of tools: our capacity to use the tools that you buy (the Internet, gadgets etc.) and the amount of knowledge acquired with time – is what we need to be addressing in modern education. Being a part of a consumptive world, you will soon feel useless and depressed. In a real world that is too slow to react on your actions, you can also start feeling unconfident and empty after a while.

Only the dialogue can be a mediator to bring these worlds together. The probability of this balance between the bought and the attained is an innovation as well as a presence of opportunity, which is given to us by such modern tools as the Internet. Throughout history either that of the kings’, the church’s and small groups of powerful clans’ regency, education has been about allowing small groups of people to acquire certain tools that would bring them to the governing circles. It was education that built stability for the status quo, incremental innovation and minor changes. In its core this system was based on the will of a small group of privileged people to rule, masterly hiding the reality. To get this very knowledge of realization that the very system that you helped to maintain was built on some form of scheme meant spending an enormous amount of time and effort. But now, when the tool of cognition – the Internet is available almost to everyone, disguising the truth within the limited circle of people becomes pretty impossible. And the balance of resources and opportunities and hence a new level of development finally became possible the education.

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