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Here’s some more of Konrad’s writing that strikes a nerve for me, that learners can’t really take ownership of words in a textbook that they can’t interact with. How much emphasis should be placed on transmission models of learning? If knowledge is just handed out on a plate (or in a book) could it not encourage learners to be lazy, just to learn enough to pass their assessments? I prefer to teach leraners to think, to help them to develop the thought processes that they need to become autonomous lifelong learners.

The most inspiring teachers I remember from my schooldays were the ones who made me think for myself, to develop my own ideas and make sense of the world for myself. To be sure, I could have read about (eg) Boyle’s law in a textbook (and did) but to derive relationships for myself has left me with a sense of achievement that this knowledge was derived by me, that I had a part in the ownership of it. (Boyle’s Law: The product of Pressure and Volume remains constant, and I swear I didn’t look it up. Thanks to Mr Lacey-Johnson, Physics master, it’ll be a part of me for as long as I breathe).
In this digital realm, then, connections between nodes of knowledge are becoming more transparent. Nodes of knowledge? I mean people. Let me explain - in bygone days the Viking longhouse would resound to stories being told, to discussion being made; the ways that knowledge and experience was shared was largely face-to-face but communication defined the shared knowledge of a community - learning and communication went hand-in-hand. Everybody brought something to the table. So what has changed today? Merely the number of people we can connect with. We still gather knowledge and share experiences but our means of doing so are now far extended