David Warlick on New Technologies and New Molds

http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2005/12/16/so-whats-different-some-answers/

David Warlick ponders the future of education. We, as librarians, should pay close attention as weell. “It seems to me that in order to shape the application of new technologies, we need a mold to shape it around, and that mold needs to be new as well. One of our problems has been that we have tried to shape the technology around out-dated notions of what schooling is about, rather than reshaping our notions to reflect new world conditions.”

Warlick’s list of what’s changed:

Information is now networked, digital and can be overwhelming. Also, it doesn’t need a container

Content is Different

Our Tools are Changing

These are incredible ideas. If the education system needs to change to accomodate these world changes, shouldn’t libraries be changing as well? Isn’t that what’s behind “Library 2.0?” The need for libraries and librarians to recognize that the way folks go about getting to information, making sense of it and manipulating into thier own trumps alot of our ideas of what we do.