Learning Ecosystems

Real-time scholarship — from academicevolution.com by Gideon Burton

“The tools are only getting better and better for discovery, networking, data mining, networking, collaborating, representing findings and disseminating learned communication. I pity my colleagues trapped in the print paradigm. By the time a journal article appears (or even an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education), what they report on will be secondary to the real conversation. The real scholars are the real-time scholars (emphasis DSC). We use legacy knowledge systems and respect them for what they do, but we don’t wait for them to fossilize the conversation; we’re too busy growing live knowledge with the more intellectually agile tools of mobile phones, microblogging, and live update streams.”

From DSC:
Gideon Burton expresses my viewpoints on this topic as well. The pace of exchanging information and learning about new information has picked up considerably. Those who rely on getting their information via printed journals are going to be at least 1 step behind. (This goes for textbooks as well.)

But my larger concern here is that if we aren’t connected in real-time to a global network of colleagues and peers, our knowledgebases may be a version or two behind — and worse yet, we may be relaying inaccurate information. We need a real-time, up-to-date, ever-growing, ever-adapting learning ecosystem.

Once again I ask, “Can you hear the engines roaring? As for myself, I’m trying not to come out onto the racetrack in an old “Model T”, as I have a significant co-pay on emergency room visits!