Education and the Internet: Colleges and Universities

The Internet undergirds debates about flexible learning, just-in-time training, and modularization of information in higher education. But the Internet—as a platform—is also a brand, label, agenda, and ideology. It is a proxy for innovation, employability, responsiveness to change, and engagement with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. There are specific and distinctive modes through which digital culture and higher education intertwine. Educational technology has attracted its share of evangelical supporters. From email to learning management systems, to the flipped classroom and massive open online courses (MOOCs), there are always consultants and facilitators who preach that the current digital revolution is greater than the previous one.

Understanding the relationship between education and the Internet requires an understanding of the key differences between words and phrases such as digitization, ...