Internet and education

Internet and Education The infusion of the Internet into modern day culture has shifted perceptions and ways of knowing in significant ways. One of the predominant concerns in these regards is the extent that technology has changed our ideas about learning, the actual ways we learn as an academic community, and the topics we learn about. It’s clear that the Internet has altered things in this realm. One of the prominent theorists in this realm of thought is Neil Postman. Postman has articulated a number of means by which the Internet has directly impacted education. From an overarching perspective, Postman contends that the infusion of new technologies fundamentally alters versions of reality or truth (Postman, pg. 12). While this technology, in this instance the Internet, is argued to fundamentally shape the nature of knowledge, it does not mean it does so in a positive or effective way. One of the fundamental functions of Internet technology is the immediate access to large sums of information; such access shifts understandings of education such that people feel they have a sort of false wisdom, when in reality they have not truly digested the information available. For Postman, such a notion means that Internet technology has not increased our knowledge in a significant regard, as new technologies do not add wisdom, instead the nature of education has been structurally changed (Postman, p. 18). Ultimately, for education this does mean that our classroom thoughts, ideas, and interests have been significantly altered. The extent that such a shift is positive or negative remains one of subjective insight.
References
Postman, Neil. Technology: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. Vintage. 1993.