ICT, Knowledge Construction, and Evolution: Subject, Community, and Society

Abstract

After a short introduction on the hypotheses scholars developed for explaining knowledge construction and evolution in mankind, the role that ICT is playing on this phenomenon is described. From the results of many studies and from the separation today well settled between human knowledge and corporate knowledge, the idea of a tri-partition of knowledge contexts arises and is developed and analyzed. The idea of three different kinds of knowledge receives good support from the observation of the effects of ICT on individuals, communities/organizations, and society; it sounds as the confirmation for the three different contexts of knowledge construction and evolution the author hypothesizes. The experiences described in this chapter show how ICT, while playing a relevant role in each of the above environments, influences all the others and determines a continuous evolution of knowledge in the three contexts. The hypothesized perspective opens to new interpretations for knowledge phenomena, leads to the overcoming of misleading learning explanations, and gives a strong impulse to the planning of projects for the introduction of ICT in education.