Abstract

This paper examines the status of the World Wide Web in the context of education, using the ideas of 20th century thinker Lewis Mumford to understand potential virtues and problems in the Web as an educational device. In general, my paper examines the conditions of possibility for education on the Web, and suggests some solutions to the problems faced when imagining an educational system which includes the Web. First, I attempt to define the technics of the Web using some of Mumford’s terminology: I consider the possibility of viewing the Web as either a tool that invites active use or as an automated machine encouraging passive use, and I attempt to situate the Web within Mumford’s model of polytechincs and monotechnics; that is, the technological makeup of diverse and monotonous labour systems, respectively. Taking information to be the basic substance of the Web, I explore the ways in which modern Web platforms treat information-gathering as an increasingly automated and mechanistic process. I argue that certain Web platforms, while they have the potential to foster the diverse thinking and labour of Mumford’s polytechnics, often fail to do so. I then use Mumford’s writings on education to explore the application of the ‘regional survey’ model of teaching to web-space and the use of the web to create or relate to communities. This involves both exploring the possibility of viewing the Web as a space, and imagining the social ends of education highlighted throughout Mumford’s work. I examine Mumford’s conception of “simultaneous” or “many-sided” thinking, and argue that the Web as we use it now, while it fosters multitasking, discourages the simultaneous thinking Mumford prescribed by encouraging instead superficial connections between disparate information. I attempt to balance the Web’s lack of embodied relationships with its ability to make connections to consider ho it might adapt to Mumford’s regionalist education model. Finally, I refer to Hubert Dreyfus’ work on education and the internet, which uses Kierkegaardian ideas to argue that the Web discourages true commitments. I examine ways to successfully apply order to Web-based work in order to foster commitments while developing the many-sided personality of the student and labourer, combining ideas from Dreyfus and Mumford to present the possibility of a Web which is fosters the development of the whole human personality and is commensurate with human social goals. My general conclusion is that in order for Web-based education to be meaningful and successful, it needs to have social goals in the real world, and must not be treated as an automated or mechanical process of information-gathering, but rather an active process of committed work on the part of students requiring skill in manipulating the basic structures of the Web.