Teachers' Personal Knowledge Management in China Based Web 2.0 Technologies

Introduction

Drucker (1993) claimed that the capital was no longer the dominant force of economic development in the knowledge society after capitalism, the application and production of knowledge was the driving force for economic growth. OECD (1996) put forward the concept of knowledge-based economy claiming that knowledge-based economy was the new economy focusing on R&D and innovation, and knowledge-based economy was a kind of economic efficiency and economic values generated by knowledge innovation, knowledge transmit and knowledge transfer. Knowledge-based economy emphasize on knowledge acquisition, accumulation, sharing, application and innovation, namely the spirit of knowledge-based economy is initiative innovation, moreover the driving force of knowledge-based economy is to foster talents. Knowledge-based economy is driven mainly by talent training, and the school is not only the main venue to train talents, but also the place of knowledge transmit and creation, teachers should recognize the important role played by themselves, pursuing professional growth to meet the need of knowledge-based economy. In the face of the impact of knowledge-based economy era, knowledge management has become the current important issue, teachers certainly should be in capability of personal knowledge management, and foster teachers’ professional capability and enhance the efficiency of teaching and learning by means of teachers’ personal knowledge management (TPKM).

Knowledge can be categorized into explicit knowledge and tacit Knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Edvinsson and Malone (1997) divides knowledge into individual knowledge, organizational and structural knowledge: individual knowledge exists only in individual mind; organizational knowledge is the kind of knowledge occurring in groups or departments; structural knowledge roots in organizations through the procedures, manual, and ethics and tenets .The three kinds of knowledge above can be explicit knowledge or tacit knowledge (O’Dell and Grayson, 1998). In teachers’ personal knowledge systems, part of knowledge is explicit knowledge, and part of knowledge is tacit knowledge. The explicit knowledge of teachers is obtained through reading and lectures, including the subject content knowledge, curriculum knowledge, subject pedagogical knowledge and part of general cultural principles. Teachers’ tacit knowledge is continually growing knowledge in the course of professional practice, which makes teachers become more mature on teaching along with experience accumulated and adapt to situations with higher ability, influencing and dominating teachers’ education conduct. From this point of view, most knowledge of teachers is tacit knowledge, however the tacit knowledge is with high-situations and implicit, and is difficult to express by using simple words. Teachers mainly impart existing knowledge to students rather than help students with constructing knowledge initiatively in the course of traditional education, which results in the issue that teachers their own practical knowledge can not be exchanged and shared in a large scale. To mine teachers’ knowledge and make their tacit knowledge explicit, teachers should carry out personal knowledge management.

By analyzing the questionnaires on the survey of Chinese teachers’ personal knowledge management, this study finds that, at present, 30 percent of teachers in the survey usually focus on personal knowledge management, 50 percent of teachers in the survey pays normal or even less attention on colleagues’ experience. With respect to professional and teaching knowledge, 75 percent of teachers in the survey claim that they achieve little or none professional knowledge since they teach. Some problems exist in terms of Chinese teachers’ personal knowledge management according to the survey results.

Knowledge is taken as core competitive power in the current society. The teacher, as an educational operator, often touches much knowledge, if they could manage knowledge efficiently according to knowledge characteristics, their work efficiency will be increased greatly. One of research hotspots of Web 2.0 is personal knowledge management, and Web 2.0 provides a series of effective technologies and platforms for personal knowledge management. Regarding personal knowledge management of Chinese teachers, this study brings forward the framework and strategies of teachers’ personal knowledge management under the condition of Web 2.0 technologies.