Week 5-Response to readings: My thoughts on Web 2.0 The Sleep of Reason Part I

It was very interesting to read Michael Gorman's perspective on the evils of the digital age and his rationale for claiming that the "anarchic world of the Internet" threatens the very foundation of human learning. I wonder what entertainment would come from having Mr. Gorman and Mr. Prensky in the same room together? I guess what made me think of Prensky when I was reading the Gorman post is that, in my view, both gentleman are similarly narrow in their perspectives. I feel that Gorman, like Prensky, makes some valid points in favour of his position. As Will Richardson says, "We've entered an age in which there are no longer many free passes when it comes to assessing the reliability of a source". I can understand on one level why Gorman pines for a time of "authoritative printed sources..." "created by scholars and published by reputable publishers". It did kind of make life simpler didn't it? With the advent of digital resources, the responsibility to authenticate now sits firmly on the shoulders of the "consumer". Will Richardson (pg. 36-37 Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms) shares the perspective of Stephen Downes on this topic: "there is no way to tell for sure if something you read on the Web in general is true" "we can no longer trust even traditional sources to always be accurate and tell the truth". Downes summarizes by saying that "determining what to believe-or to not believe-is a matter of trust. You need to determine for yourself who to trust about what" (Downes, 2005)." The point that Downes makes leads me back to Gorman's article:
"Human beings learn, essentially, in only two ways. They learn from experience—the oldest and earliest type of learning—and they learn from people who know more than they do. The second kind of learning comes from either personal contact with living people—teachers, gurus, etc.—or through interaction with the human record, that vast assemblage of texts, images, and symbolic representations that have come to us from the past and is being added to in the present. It is this latter way of learning that is under threat in the realm of digital resources."
Here is where I find Gorman's position misses one of the essential strengths of the Internet. Although the Internet may make our interactions with "human record" more difficult to evaluate, it gives us a huge advantage in our access to "teachers" and "gurus", which, even by Gorman's own evaluation, can further learning. No longer do we need to be face-to-face with the people who know more than we do. We can now access our mentors by following them on Twitter, subscribing to their blogs, and by many other technological means. Although not face-to-face, my brief experience with this type of access to "living people" is that it is surprisingly personal. Of course, Gorman would only have us trust those in the "world of scholarly and educational publishing". In his subsequent post, The Sleep of Reason Part II, Gorman rails at the "cult of the amateur". In this Gorman is fighting a losing battle I believe. For better or for worse, the Internet has empowered us to chose our own teachers and gurus. The onus is now on us to choose well.