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deCastell et al, in their
sales pitch for Webct ask: “We have developed a powerful means
for reshaping human knowledge, communications, educational structures
and relations, epistemic concepts and practices. We have incalculably
increased the amount and kind of information available to ordinary
people worldwide. We have a master code capable of utilizing in
one platform what have for the entire history of our species thus
far been irreducibly different kinds of things - writing and speech,
images and sound. Every conceivable form of information can now
be combined with every other kind to create a different form of
communication. And what we seek is comfort and familiarity?
What about novelty,
unprecedented innovation, intellectual challenge, ideological dissent?
Why are these sidelined by familiarity and comfort? How is it even
conceivable that the latter can stand in for the former? Nevertheless
this has been education's typical response to digital tools. And
to that end, lesson plans and tests are devised and promoted through
education 'portals' or templates or programs and environments are
designed by educational technology experts that as nearly as possible
replicate the traditional school-like questions, tasks and activities
that this new technology threatens to replace. Beyond being the
means of its own production, how is this use of technology better
than a textbook? How do online environments like these leverage
the seemingly transformative potential of digital tools at all?”
This web based project
which interacts with an ongoing current sailing adventure seeks
to answer these questions.
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