There's an interesting post on Web-logged about a newspaper that is basically staffed, edited, and run by its readers. The readers write the paper, and so far the paper's readership is strong and growing. With the exploding popularity of blogging, chatting, email, and other CSCL mediums that facilitate writing, it seems that we are moving away from the idea that some people are our "writers" and the rest of us read what they have written, and we're moving towards a society where everyone is a writer, a teacher, a participator, a collaborator. Web-logged's writer muses that this could have big implications for education, where students are not consumers of knowledge, but producers of it. He writes that students are starting to expect this of the educational system.
And they should expect it. Every teacher knows they learn more about a subject by teaching it then they do by "learning" it. If we truly want students to learn, they need to all be teachers and producers.
