In The Future of Thinking, Davidson and Goldberg observe, “Fourth, the ‘bowling alone’ pronouncements about the lonely life of the Internet-obsessed youth are over, initially undone by massively multiplayer online games and the popularity of social networking sites.”

I’m not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, many people today use the Internet to keep in touch with friends and family in “real life.” Rather than just not having the chance to connect at all on a day-to-day basis with those who now live further away from us (or who we just don’t see every single day, so we need to make the effort to connect despite busy schedules), it’s easy to drop a post or PM to check in with others.

On the other hand, I think the jury is still out on whether or not these connections can serve as a substitute for real life interactions, as well as whether or not people spend time on social media, etc. that they would otherwise spend nurturing relationships in real life.

In general, I think that especially regarding learning, the Internet makes it easier to connect with people who share interests, but not a geographic location. This makes it much easier to learn about topics and experiences outside of the local bubble. But we’ve already discussed the downsides, like echo chambers and spreading misinformation accidentally or intentionally.

I did generally agree with this paragraph, however:

We have been suggesting another form. This concerns productive learning by creating together and learning from that coproduction—about process, about content, about modes of production, about sociality, about ethics, about leadership, about temporal discipline, about multitasking, about distrib-uted tasking, and so on. Issues of collaboration are crucial to the future of learning insti-tutions. But so, too, are originality, reward, accountability, and sustainability (including public and private sponsorship and support).

Tech tools and Web 2.0 in general, but I don’t think we’re yet at the point where we can just replace mediating professionals with the Internet or any other tech. Will this be possible someday, given advances in AI? Most likely. Doctors may also one day be replaced largely by advanced AI, along with, possibly, every other human in their professional – and perhaps personal – capacity. But this is only given a long enough timeframe, which could be thousands of years from now. Currently, someone needs to hold learning materials themselves accountable. Data, reading material, and entire learning modules found online can easily be inaacurate, fradulant, or biased (due to, for example, corporate sponsership, among other things). Human beings can be, too, but some sort of vetting process exists to make sure an attempt is made by instructors and trainers to direct learners to accurate materials. On their own, learners, especially beginners, may not always know which sources and modules to trust.

I believe in the amazing potentional of the Internet for the future, and think it has already done quite a bit of good. But not only do I not see it as the cure-all I anticipated when I was young, I now recognize that there are major issues, as well.

Collaborative learning depends on a certain level of trust. We can achieve this using the Internet (even if just among smaller, already vetting groups), but it demands some form of accountability. That’s easier when working with certain groups, but when dealing with more informal learning, it become a trickerier issue. We don’t want to see free speech curtailed, but we also worry about the dangerous consequences of disseminating misinformation.

The reading also hits on a concern I’ve seen expressed by others:

Authorship is not one thing but various things. Anderson’s model of authorship begins in the material-technological world of “networked practices of composition” and ends squarely in the “author-as-owner” model. There are countless examples of faculty taking students’ ideas or products and making them their own. So the chal-lenge, as much institutional as individual, is how to establish and reward interactive, collaborative outputs.

The larger book’s preface reminds us that technology isn’t “free.” Maintaince, whether it be of websites or curated information, requires a human laborer. Some people are able to contribute in their free time. But if no one is supporting such efforts, realistically, learners have to “take what they can get” and make do. There’s no strong incentive or in some cases, time provided for a quality job on everything that is required.

Therefore, we do need to make an effort to compensate those who contribute in some way whenever possible.