Movimentos - It Takes a Global Village: Distributed Cognition and the Digital-Age Classroom

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It Takes a Global Village: Distributed Cognition and the Digital-Age Classroom - the abstract

(The abstract of the paper I presented two weeks ago at the McLuhan Galaxy Conference in Barcelona)

By applying McLuhan’s “Global Village” and “Collective

Unconscious” metaphors to computer-mediated communication and online

social applications, this paper analyses some of the challenges and opportunities

of teaching “digital natives” in connected classrooms, in order to illustrate

changes brought to higher education by the distribution of cognition by

computers and digital networks. Discussing the relevance of generational

determinism for this debate, my argument will focus on the restructuring of

communication and information flows, from the standpoint of the effects of

information availability and literacy. I argue that the concept of “distributed

cognition” can enlighten the new practices brought to higher education

classrooms by the generalized use of information and communication

technologies.