Learning Across Sites: New tools, infrastructures and practices - Earli

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Chapter 19
Using Bakhtin to re- think
the teaching of Higher-order
thinking for the network
society
Rupert Wegerif and Maarten De Laat
Introduction
We borrow the term ‘network society’ from Manuel Castells, one of the most
widely quoted commentators on the impact of the internet revolution. In his
trilogy, The Information Age: Economy, society and culture, he analyses data on
current trends to argue that there is a convergence towards a new form of social
organisation which he calls the ‘network society’, defining this as: ‘a society where
the key social structures and activities are organized around electronically processed
information networks’ (Castells, 2001). Of course there have always been networks
but Castells advances the claim that the advent of the internet has transformed
the nature of these networks. The difference now is the mediating role played by
near- instantaneous electronic communication. In particular Castells claims that a
global economy is different from a world economy because: ‘it is an economy with
the capacity to work as a unit in real time on a planetary scale’ (1996, p. 92). We
think that this interesting claim suggests a new and more situated way of conceptualising
what it might mean to teach ‘Higher-order’ thinking skills.
In the introduction to this volume the editors emphasise the convergence
between new tools and new competencies (Ludvigsen, Lund, Rasmussen & Säljö,
this volume). While some of the new competencies implied by new technologies
are highly situated in the specific practices associated with the use of new tools,
others have been conceptualised in a much more general way. It has long been
argued, for example, that the increasing automation of low- skilled and semi- skilled
work puts a premium on ‘Higher-order’ skills, such as making reasoned decisions
between alternatives and innovating new approaches (e.g. Ennis, 1996; Wegerif,
2003; Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). Some argue further that the accelerating
rate of technological and social change associated with globalisation also puts a
premium on adaptability or ‘learning to learn’ throughout the lifespan (e.g. Levin
& Rumberger, 1995; Quisumbing, 2005). Castells follows this trend in describing
education for the network society in terms of flexible and general thinking and
learning skills relating these to the skills required to make full use of the internet.
Real education, he writes, is