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

Pedagogical Consequences of the Transformation of Information and Knowledge
to information and knowledge and gradually to develop their own corresponding individual
learning behaviour. This should take place deliberately rather than unconsciously.
Because this does not just affect learning in schools and institutes of higher education
but also affects everyone's lifelong learning, continuing education will probably be the
largest and most important field in which the described change will take place. In the
knowledge society, continuing education will become a fixed, if not even an integral,
component of each individually experienced private and vocational life. Never before
has continuous education been promoted so vehemently, has it been so pressing. And it
can probably only take place to the extent aimed for in the changed conditions of a
computerised knowledge society.
If we keep the pedagogical tasks in mind that result from the change and also call to
mind the corresponding pedagogical chances, it becomes clear just how complex, fundamental
and successful the adjustment to the changed situations has to be. With the focus
on information and knowledge only a tiny aspect of the general cultural change has been
examined. If we look at it, as in this essay, as pars pro toto we are overwhelmed by those
happenings that pull us unawares into their undertow.
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