World's OS is about Conversation, not Information

If we agree that the morphing networked world is about conversation, then we can picture the changes this way:

1. Web 1.0 was about stone tablets.
2. Web 2.0 is about smoke signals; recording our thoughts, ideas, and opinions and reacting to the thoughts, ideas, and opinions of others, whether synchronously or asynchronously.
3. Web 3.0 is about bridging the space-time gap to engage in live, direct, real-time conversation that is virtually – if not actually – face-to-face.

The new, real-time platform is unique because it will be enhanced by APIs that can mashup our interactions in order to shape new communities hitherto unattainable.

When we understand that technology is innovated to improve social communication, we become less device and application focused and more interactive. Hence, the social media phenomenon is here to stay and will increase in intensity as new mashup applications develop to aid our intrinsic need to share.

The challenge for education is that historically, assessment of knowledge is individually based. This makes perfect sense because it's difficult to give a degree to someone who doesn't demonstrate command of some particular knowledge-domain they have studied. However, the real-world of business does not run on individual talents as much as team efforts.

Pedagogical application has responded with case-based, project-oriented, and portfolio-developing lesson plans. But in the end, standardized testing still focuses on individual regurgitation of memorized facts. This is a senseless contradiction at best and reflects a broken system that needs to be redesigned to enter the 21st Century. (posted 12/18/09)