Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 27
Knowledge Building in Society 2.0: Challenges
and Opportunities
Jingyan Lu, Ming Lai, and Nancy Law
Division of Information and Technology studies, Faculty of Education, The University of
Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Introduction
Approaches to and understandings of learning have changed substantially in recent
decades, particularly with the advent of information technology. Learning has
changed from that of imparting knowledge from teachers to learners in traditional
school systems to that of constructing knowledge collectively among learners,
teachers, and others, across various contexts, like schools, families, community,
and technology supported learning environments. Although, traditional notions of
education are well suited to industrialized economies which require workers who
have mastered specific bodies of knowledge and have acquired specific sets of
skills, the emergence of knowledge-based economies are confronting educators with
new challenges of how to prepare students for the knowledge age (Drucker, 1994).
Knowledge-based economies shift the focus from the mastery of knowledge to the
creation of knowledge. Everyone, not just the elites, is now required to engage
in creating knowledge or in adding value to existing knowledge (Scardamalia &
Beretier, 2003). Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia (2003) have proposed
“knowledge building” as a theory for organizing school education to meet the
challenges of the knowledge age.
Knowledge building is the process by which societies expand the frontiers of
knowledge. It occurs in scientific communities and in companies where members
focus on advancing community knowledge. Individuals learn by contributing to the
knowledge of the communities they belong to. Recent reports on the implementation
of knowledge building in schools suggest that even elementary students have the
ability to engage in activities similar to those of knowledge workers. For instance
they are able to advance knowledge by identifying inadequacies in current states
of collective knowledge (see e.g., (Hakkarainen, 1998; Scardamalia, Bereiter, &
Lamon, 1994; Zhang, Scardamalia, Lamon, Messina, & Reeve, 2007).
