Routledge Education 2.0: The LearningWeb Revolution and the Transformation of the School

Thirty years of spirited school reforms have failed to improve our schools and instead have left our public school systems in disarray. Meanwhile, employment prospects for high school and college graduates are fading, and the public is losing faith in its schools. The education paradigm inherited from the Industrial Era is in crisis. In the last decade, however, the Internet and new Web 2.0 technologies have placed the entirety of human knowledge in the hands of everyone. What will our educational institutions make of this unprecedented flood of Web-based learning resources? How can schools be transformed to accommodate the new possibilities for personal and social learning? Leonard Waks gathers all the pieces of our current educational puzzle together in this groundbreaking book. Drawing on new organizational models grounded in complexity theory, Waks maps out an inspiring new paradigm for education in the Internet age, and connects all the dots in constructing detailed models for new schools-now transformed into "open learning centers." Finally, Waks details action steps readers can take to speed this transformative process along in their own locations. Review “Recommended.” ―CHOICE “Leonard J. Waks has a genuine and unremitting commitment to young people. This is consistently demonstrated throughout his reimagining of schooling in the Internet Age in Education 2.0: The Learningweb Revolution and the Transformation of the School. The book takes seriously contemporary problems of schools at the discursive and policy levels while maintaining a well-supported faith in the power of young people and the Internet.” ―Journal of Philosophy of Education “Waks has crafted a book that is well informed about theoretical issues in education while also detailed and erudite with regard to new technologies. In that sense, the book is one of a kind and will likely be influential. Educational theorists of all stripes will find new and useful ideas in this book.” ―Educational Theory “Although there is widespread realization that technology has created a profound societal revolution, it has not been deeply integrated with educational reform. In Education 2.0 Leonard J. Waks constructs a philosophical basis derived from complexity theory for school improvement. He details practical design for curricular and instructional improvement through a learningweb revolution. In so doing, Professor Waks shows how to overcome failures of industrial models of schooling by employing a new ecology of learning networks that could transform schools for the 21st Century. He helps us understand that the vast availability of knowledge to students today calls for paradigmatic changes in ways we envision personal and social learning. I urge anyone concerned with education (especially educators and policy makers) to read Waks’ book carefully, reflect thoughtfully on possibilities advanced in it, and use its key messages to reconstruct schooling. The future of subsequent generations is at stake.” ―William H. Schubert is Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois at Chicago “Few people understand the convergence of technology change like Leonard Waks. In Education 2.0 he brings us face-to-face with the contemporary revolution in learning. Many books have described these emerging learning technologies, but few have shown how they might be part of a transformational learning ecology. Education 2.0, true to its name, places them within a comprehensive conceptual model of an entirely new learning ecology. While previous attempts at such a broad synthesis of the new educational situation have been [made], Education 2.0 is the first to succeed. Professor Waks nails it!” ―Curt Bonk, Indiana University “Education 2.0: The Learningweb Revolution and the Transformation of the School discusses the most significant paradigm shift in education in the contemporary era, its institutional effects, and its democratic potential. With the development of Web