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1) Since I read this article significantly later than I should have, the least interesting portions were those we reviewed during class on Monday. The most interesting portions for me, are relating to the gaps between increasingly specialized groups. However, while getting these people to collaborate in the workplace is important, that's not what concerns me most. The principal behind a Democracy is that the average Joe can understand what is going on in the country and vote for people and ideas which make sense. If most people are too specialized to be able to communicate well, how can legislation be debated in a meaningful way? I could continue along this vein for some time, but since it's a bit off topic, I'll leave it at that. 2) Learning is and must increasingly be, a collaborative effot. Technologies which facilitate this collaboration need to be expanding and developed beyond simple gift-wrapping of old teaching methods. 3) Hyperlinked glossaries are useful and becoming more common. Design documents for software I've worked on have linked to in document glossaries like this. 4) I had heard of Vygotsky since my father studied him a great deal. As such, it's pretty embarrassing that I knew just about nothing about the guy, so I looked into his thought a little: Interactions between individuals are the crux of learning. A student learns first as a group or member of society and then internalizes that knowledge to form his/her own ideas. As such, the group, community or society a child develops in, strongly effects them. A variety of tools, mostly pyschological define the potential for growth. The most import of these tools is language which we use to construct the world.
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