Learning Environments
Knowledge Networks 4: Being a Knowledge Worker

 

The article highlights the many key infrastructural requirements that are necessary if students are to be able to become knowledge networkers and innovators. Building knowledge and understanding is a complex process and in order to maximise the effectiveness of the process, availability of high-speed Internet connectivity is essential, along with software environments that are ambient, intuitive and allow knowledge elements to be moved around and manipulated simply and easily. This requires an entirely new pedagogy built on a framework that reflects the 21st century, incorporating the rich information landscapes which are now available. A futuristic version of this was captured in the movie "The Minority Report". In the movie Tom Cruise is seen to stand in front of a transparent large screen and manipulate large amounts of information in a whole variety of formats in order to ascertain whether or not a murder was about to happen. This process captured the potential of technology to deliver very rich information environments, and when placed in the hands of someone who is well versed in a particular skill set, the tools elicit very powerful possibilities of knowledge creation.

This does not mean that these tools are necessary for knowledge to be created, but rather that these tools maximise the possibility for knowledge creation across a much wider audience than is presently possible. In most of our socially construed "knowledge creation environments" (schools) information is captured and presented predominantly in text formats. The provision of these tools to learners empowers a far greater percentage of the populous to build knowledge and understanding much more effectively, by presenting information in a wide range of easily accessible and easily manipulated media formats. In an excellent article " Knowledge Creation" http://www.knetus.net/white/knowledge-networks-mapping.html Valdis Krebs argues for an interrelationship between the need for technology and the need for biological and social systems.

"The effective utilisation of knowledge and learning requires both culture and technology. Explicit information and data can be easily codified, written down, and stored in a data base. For this type of business information we have the necessary skills and more than adequate tools. Yet, simple data is frequently not where competitive advantage is found. An organization's real edge in the marketplace is often found in complex, context-sensitive knowledge which is difficult, if not often impossible to codify and store in ones and zeroes. This core knowledge is found in individuals, communities of interest and their connections. An organisation's data is found in its computer systems, but a company's intelligence is found in its biological and social systems. Computer networks must support the people networks in today's fluid and adaptive organisations -- not the other way around."