This is the draft text of the main messages for this Section, developed from the comments made in the first round of consultation.

Please EITHER: copy and paste this text into the message box below, and edit it to an improved version of the statements you think this section should be making, OR: draft your own statements. Insert a title and post the message. Also, please respond to requests for examples – these will help to bring the document to life.

We see ‘knowledge’ in two different ways. It may be seen as something fairly stable – the expert view, the common knowledge, received wisdom – which is to be passed on, enabling us to learn from others. It may also be seen as something quite unstable - the product of our experience, practitioner knowledge, local wisdom. There is a continuous interplay between the two - we rely on stable representations and treat knowledge as independent of context, and at the same time have to engage in 'work' to make sense of them in a particular setting - then creating new stable representations and so forth. The two types of knowledge are complementary.

Traditionally, formal education has focused more on the transmission of the stable knowledge established by scholars and scientists. But education is now recognizing the importance of equipping individuals with the capability to produce their own knowledge – to continue to learn from their own experience and interactions with others. The skills of enquiry, analysis, synthesis, collaboration, knowledge negotiation, evaluation, communication, are the high-level cognitive skills that we all need as both citizens and as workforce.

Technology supports both types of knowledge: it can support the teaching of stable knowledge, as in tutoring systems, or provide an interactive and collaborative online environment in which users can create and negotiate new ideas or representations of their practice.

For example...

(1) Magic Forest and Dragon Pathways microworlds can illustrate this kind of approach. They are powerful environments for children to build narrative learning environments and games in an easy way. (http://educacao.cnotinfor.pt/produtos/tic.php)
Due to their object oriented approach they enable the learner to focus on the properties of each element of a narrative or game and on how each of them interacts with each other. The whole interdependency appears, like this, as an emergent behaviour. You don’t need to build up the entire structure, neither to detail all the sequences of the narrative. You simple define some rules, for some objects and then marvel yourself with predicted and unpredicted results that push you again to new narratives.
Magic Forest and Dragon Pathways, with the iconic rules based object programming language, makes it easy to animate any situation, should it be a story, a game or a simulation.

(2) Similarly, MyArtSpace enables learners to create and negotiate new ideas. The premise behind MAS is that teachers discuss an open question with the students. The students then visit a technology-equipped museum and with handheld technology they curate their own interpretation of the visit, using a combination of resources provided by the museum and their own perspectives captured through photos, notes and recordings. These form the basis for sharing, reflection and discussion back in the classroom.

Some issues are expanded for further discussion in the next few pages:

• Current perspectives within the network.
  
• How has TEL research changed in the EU? What are the historical shifts?
• Specifically, what is the added value contributed by the academic community?

• Looking ahead: where are we going, and where should we be going?