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

Pedagogical Consequences of the Transformation of Information and Knowledge
human self-definition" (Bolz, 1997, p. 626). This addresses a process of identity finding
and changes which is important for a new form of forming personality.
For the human image of future pedagogy it is therefore important to see the great extent
in which "I" constructions take place when working with computers and in the Internet.
We "stylise and create our self" (Turkle, 1998, p. 290) in this virtual reality. This creates
a new pedagogical problem: we do not know what the relationship is of this virtual self
to the real self, i.e. to the traditional personality, in particular because practical experience
makes clear that we are dealing with two greatly different ways of experiencing. Will
people in the knowledge society be able to change easily from one sphere to another,
as if it were amphibiously, when developing their personalities?
Disadvantage: How advanced is automation of mental functions? Does what has
already been achieved have consequences for the acquisition of knowledge in the digital
learning environment? Hartmut von Hentig (1993) has diagnosed with foresight how
computers have made serious changes to this process. He argues that certain
characteristics of the human mind penetrate the computer, react on students and
accumulate there, while other characteristics "rest without being used, are neglected and
in the end lost". This insight might in fact be extended to refer very generally to
informed knowledge as such. How do pedagogues handle the acquisition of knowledge
in which hermeneutic working methods, the power of memory, the force of
remembering, reflection, productive doubts and systematic reasoning are and remain to
a great extent masked out?
The Continuing Role of Classical Knowledge
In this transitional period the position of traditional, of classical knowledge will be of no
less pedagogical significance. Not a few media theoreticians see us now quite decidedly
at the end of the Gutenberg galaxy (e.g. McLuhan, 1962; Bolz, 1995) and already in the
era of electronic communication. They toll the knell for the end of the culture of
writing, the civilisation of the book and therefore of classical knowledge and see here
"the turning away from the old, subjective, linearly thinking and historically conscious
person" (Flusser, 1991, p. 158; quoted by Werner Faulstich, 1997, p. 32).
The reasons given by these authors are excitingly obvious and logical. However, if we
do not describe the change theoretically and subtly but keep our eyes pragmatically on
what is actually happening, we have to ask ourselves whether the knowledge society can
do without the methods and findings of classical knowledge, whether the over three
thousand years of »logophonocentric« development (Bolz, 1995, p. 186) of linear
logical thought is in fact now coming to an end. Let us remind ourselves of the
significance of continuous reflection on knowledge, of what epistemology and the
science of knowledge have contributed, and above all of the hermeneutical and
empirical processes of acquiring new knowledge. A reflected logical methodology for
acquiring informed knowledge still has to be developed and may indeed not even be
possible.
The increase in significance that informed knowledge is experiencing at present must
for this reason not lead (yet) to the neglect or even disregard of classical knowledge.
From a pedagogical aspect it remains an important content and is still an absolutely
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