The question which I have thought about going through this investigation was the function and the essential meaning of knowledge. For most of my life, the meaning of knowledge in my head was similar to ‘information’, so knowledge was perceived as something that should be unilaterally input into a human brain from the media. However, going through the assignment, I have learned that knowledge itself can be an appropriate tool for expanding spontaneous consideration as well as the ability that people can look for their appropriate knowledge. In short, it is possible to say that active learning can be called knowledge too. In the written response, I would like to share two aspects of knowledge as active learning, which are a device for thinking and the ability for inspecting the information.
Firstly, I could see the aspect of knowledge for thinking from the book ‘Does Writing Have a Future?’, which has described in detail that with the development of printing technology, the function of writing was shifted from the speculative into the practical. As writers of the Gutenberg era became aware that they were manipulating types and unfurled the typifying mode of thought in all areas of culture. On the other hand, after the Industrial Revolution, information was to be pressed mechanically into many products for just transmission. Modern people could learn the style for getting the trigger to reach a new area of knowledge by handwriting.
Furthermore, knowledge can be the ability for inspecting the information. In this topic, it is crucial to be concerned about the interaction between knowledge and the Internet. Because the Internet is a tool for getting a huge amount of knowledge as one of the biggest media nowadays. The book ‘The Internet Does Not Exist’ said that the Internet could show a very particular world that has already become part of our consciousness. On top of that, the knowledge which was gathered from the Internet, which entire worlds made of contradiction, should be carefully estimated. From the above, spontaneous thinking is required in order to correctly deal with knowledge in the information society.
In conclusion, I have learned that knowledge does not just function as one-way information, but should be worked effectively by interacting with our human thoughts. At that time, it is useful to follow in the footsteps of our predecessors in making efforts to deepen our thinking through handwriting, and to get the ability to be critical through the use of Internet technology.
Reading List
- Does Writing Have a Future? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (2011) pp. 47–54
- The Internet Does Not Exist Berlin: Sternberg Press (2015) pp. 5–9
