What Do We Need to Know...

From Stephan Baker's Numerati blog....A great lens for approaching curriculum design work.

"Here's a question I've been wondering about for years: What do we need to know? In other words, as we make our way through the vast universe of information, with online encyclopedias and networks of friends at our command, what exactly do we need to store in our heads?

It has to be changing. I remember reading in Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi about the amazing river pilots in the 19th century who had to keep in their heads every twist and turn of a 2,000-mile river. As they moved encountered boats traveling in the other direction, they would learn about shifting sandbars south of Vicksburg or felled trees near Cairo. And with this information, they would update the river running through their brains.

What does a Mississippi river pilot need to know today? It has to be a lot different, and the same thing goes for practically every profession. How important is formal knowledge, the kind you get in books or even an established Web page? And how does it stack up against the awareness knowledge that comes from what's happening at this moment on the networks?"