From Boulos and Wheeler:
The emphasis on social learning stands in sharp contrast to the traditional Cartesian view of knowledge and learning—a view that has largely dominated the way education has been structured for over one hundred years. The Cartesian perspective assumes that knowledge is a kind of substance and that pedagogy concerns the best way to transfer this substance from teachers to students. By contrast, instead of starting from the Cartesian premise of “I think, therefore I am,” and from the assumption that knowledge is something that is transferred to the student via various pedagogical strategies, the social view of learning says, “We participate, therefore we are.”
An interesting quote I ran across. In my research class at Saint Joseph’s High School, we’ve migrated to public interaction. One phrase we use is “If it’s not on on the wiki, it didn’t happen.” There’s something intriguing about the idea of learning in public. Who is learning for, anyway?