Distance Education in Transition - Master of Distance Education ...

Pedagogical Consequences of the Transformation of Information and Knowledge
� The philosopher Holm Tetens (1999, p. 2) prophesies: "We will drown in a flood of
data".
� And the media expert Neil Postman (1990) asks whether we are "informing ourselves
to death". He bases this on the following diagnosis: "Our information immune
system is inoperable. We don't know how to filter it out; we don't know how to
reduce it, we don't know how to use it. We suffer from a kind of cultural AIDS."
Behind these attitudes and evaluations we can feel an almost desperate, because futile,
attempt to resist. People want to defend the traditional forms of knowledge, classical
knowledge, against a flood of data and a torrent of information. The feeling is that
traditional knowledge is being forced to retreat in the knowledge society; it is losing its
importance. And what makes everything even more precarious is that the opponents of
the process have detected its "irreversibility" and are suffering from a culture shock
which, according to Werner Faulstich (1997, p. 14), always happens in the history of
culture whenever a new medium for imparting knowledge establishes itself.
The Emergence of Informed Knowledge
In view of the cultural criticism referred to above, and of many other critical opinions,
which are mainly selective and criticise across the board, the research work carried out
by the sociologist Nina Degele (2000) acquires particular importance. She has carried
out wide-ranging, in-depth and impressive analyses of the effect of computerisation on
our society not only with regard to information but also to knowledge. The direction and
the unprecedented dynamism of the current actual change becomes manifest and clear,
and puts the isolated cultural-critical objections of other authors into perspective. As
shown above, the author describes the emergence of a new type of knowledge – namely
"informed knowledge" – and diagnoses as a consequence nothing less than the
"redevelopment of our knowledge" (2000, p. 9).
Pedagogical Tasks
There is no doubt that the significance of informed knowledge will continue to increase
in the "knowledge society". Perhaps it will even come to dominate the way we handle
knowledge. Because of this, it will also become pedagogically important as well. If a
general goal of pedagogy is to prepare people for their future lives, both private and
professional, for the purposes of "mastering existence", this must include clarification
of informed knowledge, favouring appropriate attitudes, training exercises in how to
cope with it and education in specific competences. However, this is a complex and
therefore difficult task and the following benchmarks will have to be kept in mind to
solve it.
Formation of Consciousness
� Consciousness of the epochal cultural-historical change from the industrial society
to the knowledge society and from the modern to the post-modern must be created
and developed so that the greater connection and the importance of the paradigm
change in the field of knowledge can be seen.
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