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

Pedagogical Consequences of the Transformation of Information and Knowledge
essential means of acquiring the world, a proven medium for "enlightening" and "mastering"
existence. Nina Degele (2000, p. 96) evaluates classical knowledge as "knowledge of
the first order" that makes up most of our total knowledge. And Gibbons et al. (1995,
VII) describe the new knowledge merely as "Mode 2" of knowledge and stress that it is
developing "alongside the traditional, familiar one".
In the interplay with the information stored in the Internet and when generating
informed knowledge we must recognise that classical knowledge in fact possesses an
essential degree of significance, because not only global knowledge but usually ordered
and flexible expert knowledge is necessary as well that has to be easily accessible not in
a computer but in memory when difficult and demanding problems are to be solved.
The human memory assumes functions here that are not available to computers in spite
of their memory capacities. Franz Emanuel Weinert (1997, p. 169) has indicated this
impressively. He contradicts the frequently heard opinion that in the 21 st century we do
not need to have a general education and certainly no skilled knowledge available in our
memories because of the short life of knowledge. In fact, he claims, "intelligent"
contextually relevant knowledge is necessary in the first place to be able to use the help
of the computer with promising objectives, part objectives and solution strategies. The
role of already available knowledge, of intelligence and of personal motivation, the
cooperation between working memory and long-term memory is integrated into the
interplay of classical and informed knowledge, factors for which there are no
correspondences in the computer.
The solution of a demanding task therefore starts in the mind and not in the computer, to
paraphrase the phrase quoted from Jürgen Mittelstraß.
Pedagogical Chances
The internal and external conditions for the production of knowledge that the computer
has changed also influence the acquisition of knowledge. The reason for this is that
there is a certain affinity and parallelism between the two processes. They may even be
isomorphic in important sections. For example, if we look at how informed knowledge is
created the special relation between information and knowledge becomes clear that also
has an effect in learning processes. This parallelism, which will be demonstrated in the
following pages, opens up new and by no means charted opportunities for optimising and
reforming the teaching and learning process.
Two Parallel Processes
Let us look back first of all at how informed knowledge can be created:
� At the start of the process is a problem that has to be described and analysed with
the help of internal knowledge.
� By navigating and surfing in the Internet regionally and globally distributed
information is filtered intelligently. With its help the existing relevant state of
knowledge is brought to mind, the problem is illuminated from several sides,
analysing it is simplified, and in certain circumstances externally existing solutions
are surveyed.
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