The Next G Web. Discernment, meaning-making, and the implications of Web 3.0 for education

Abstract

What might Web 3.0 mean for education – that Wis, education seen as an intellectual and philosophical endeavour where we seek to critique the world and understand our place in it with others? In this paper, I argue that current emphases on the semantic functionality of Web 3.0 have the potential to concomitantly challenge and extend the humanist educational enterprise, both as practice and intellectual endeavour. I present a brief history and description of Web 3.0, before providing an analysis of the two dominant scenarios in the Web 3.0 educational literature: the adminstrative scenario and the pedagogical scenario. My main point is that the role of the teacher in the Web 3.0 landscape must be understood as one of discernment – that is, the ability to judge and judge well on the part of both teacher and learner – for it is discernment that underlies the uniquely human ability to create meaning and thus make sense of the world.

Keywords:

• Web 3.0
• semantic web
• education
• pedagogy
• philosophy
• Freire

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Pam Christie, Anna Hutchens, and my anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this paper.