[PDF] The Sixth Language: Learning a Living in the Internet Age, Second Edition

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The Sixth Language: Learning a Living in the Internet Age,
Second Edition
Sinopsis :
The first edition of the Sixth Language, published in 2000, was
a recipient of the Susanne K. Langer Prize of the Media
Ecology Association for Outstanding Scholarship in the
Ecology of Symbolic Form. This second edition includes 37
new pages in a new Foreword and Afterword where Logan
reports on a number of new developments in his research into
the origin and evolution of language. The Sixth Language
updates the work of Marshall McLuhan by applying his ideas to
the communications revolution taking place due to digital
information technology. Logan's work interweaves ideas which
touch on language, education, work, social class, information

technology and management theory. He establishes the
theoretical background for his study with a succinct and very
readable summary of McLuhan's ideas. Logan develops a new
theory of language by showing that a language is not merely a
system of communication but also an information processing
tool. He goes on to show that speech, writing, mathematics,
science, computing and the Internet form an evolutionary chain
of verbal languages. As Logan weaves his tale of the
development of language he also shows how new educational,
social, political and economic institutions arise. Turning to
education Logan shows how the evolution of language led to
the evolution of education. He explains that the reason our
schools are so out of touch is that they are Industrial Age
institutions trying desperately to meet the needs of the Internet
Age and the Knowledge Era. He suggests a radical new way
of remedying the malaise of education by proposing that the
core curriculum focus on the generic skills associated with the
use of the six languages of speech, writing, math, science,
computing and the Internet. He contends that the actual
content of the curriculum, the topics that are studied are not
important and should be chosen to cater to the students'
interests. Once students have mastered the six languages
they are then in a position to learn whatever topics or material
they require for their work or their personal interest. Logan
proposes an equally radical rethinking of training and
education in the work place. Logan closes his book with a
chapter on the Internet in which he shows how this medium
recaptures the spirit of oral culture. He demonstrates that the
new level of connectivity requires more than the mere reengineering
of business processes such as marketing,
advertising, sales, customer support, and market research.
According to Logan, it requires an actual alignment of these
processes because of the way in which they are integrated by
the Internet. Logan was a young colleague of Marshall

McLuhan at the University of Toronto and brings a richness of
linkage between McLuhan's vision and its fruition in the
internet age. While the book gives many practical overviews, it
is more a book of comprehension than of instruction. The
internet age is upon us, but many firms are not at the point of
understanding learning a living as a concept. an Amazon
reviewer Dr. Logan is an alumnus of MIT and currently teaches
at the University of Toronto where he is a member of the
Physics Department and is cross-appointed to the Ontario
Institute for Studies in Education and the McLuhan Program in
Cultural Technology. He served as an advisor to Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau and has authored studies for the
Ontario Ministry of Education, the federal Department of
Communications, the Science Council of Canada, and the
federal Ministry of State for Science and Technology.