The Digital Economy ANNIVERSARY EDITION: Rethinking Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence, 2nd Edition

Chapter Eight Original Edition

LEARNING IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY

     I’m only attending school until it becomes available on CD-ROM.

          Anonymous sixth-grade student

When we think of learning, we think of schools. In 1926, the great Finnish composer Jean Sibelius produced Tapiola, a most austere work that speaks mightily of the natural forces of the long and dark winter in that northern clime. To say the least, not everyone likes the work. Sibelius was unconcerned. “Others can provide the cocktails,” he said. “I serve only plain water.” Learning was once a plain-water process conducted by educational institutions. Teachers and professors shared what they knew. Students discussed the issues, then prepared papers by doing their own research ...