A new book from faculty members at Athabasca University says that “holistic technologies”—technologies that “celebrate the creative partnering of human beings and harness the enormous amount of information on the web”—will rise to challenge traditional approaches to education. Jon Dron and Terry Anderson advocate networked learning models, where answers are derived from interaction and contributions from multiple participants. They further suggest that, in order to facilitate the pedagogical possibilities of networked learning and holistic technologies, education institutions must make changes including offering courses of variable length, turning to competency-based assessments, and doing away with disciplinary silos. Dron and Anderson have implemented their approach in a social learning platform at AthabascaU called The Landing. AthabascaU News Release
