Any serious consideration given to the future of education and training in the new cyberculture must be preceded by a careful analysis of the profound changes occurring in the way we learn and acquire knowledge. In this regard, we must first acknowledge the speed at which knowledge and know-how appears and is being updated. For the first time in the history of humanity most of the skills a person acquires at the beginning of his career will be obsolete at the end of his professional life. The second observation, which is related to the first, concerns the change in the way we work, where the amount of time devoted to the transfer of knowledge is constantly increasing. Work is more and more synonymous with learning, transferring know-how and producing knowledge. Third observation: cyberspace supports intellectual technologies which amplify, materialize, and transform a number of human cognitive functions: memory (data bases, hyperdocuments, digital files of all kinds), imagination (simulations), perception (digital sensors, telepresence, virtual reality), thinking (artificial intelligence, modeling of complex phenomena). Such intellectual technologies promote:
• new ways of accessing information: hyperdocumentation, finding information using "search engines", knowbots or software agents, contextual explorations using dynamic data maps.
• new ways of thinking and reasoning: such as simulation - an industrialized form of thought experiment that cannot be equated with logical deduction or induction through experience.
Due to the fact that these intellectual technologies - particularly dynamic memory - have been materialized in digital documents or softwares that can be consulted by network (or easily reproduced and transferred), they can be shared with a large number of people thus augmenting the potential collective intelligence of human groups.
The knowledge-flow, the work-transaction of knowledge, the new technologies of collective and individual intelligence are all dramatically altering our approach to education and training. What must be learned can no longer be planned and precisely defined in advance. Career paths and profiles are all different and are more and more difficult to channel into programmes or courses that are valid for everyone. We must build new models that more accurately portray this new space of knowledge. The traditional representation (linear, parallel step-ladders with pyramids structured into levels) geared by the concept of prerequisite and converging toward "higher" education, must be gradually replaced by a representation of open, emerging spaces of knowledge that are continuous, evolving, non-linear, and are reorganising according to specific objectives or contexts and where each individual enjoys a distinct, evolving position.
Two major reforms of education and training systems are thus necessary. First, the wider use of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) -- both in spirit and practice -- in daily normal education. Of course, ODL exploits various remote teaching techniques, including hypermedia, interactive communication networks, and all the intellectual technologies available in cyberculture. However, a new pedagogical style is essential: one that promotes both personalized learning and cooperative learning using networks. In this context, the teacher has to inspire the exchange of knowledge and collective intelligence between his students rather than dispensing information unidirectionally.
The second reform has to do with the recognition of acquired knowledge. If people learn from their social and professional experiences, if schools and universities are gradually losing their monopoly in the creation and transmission of knowledge, then public educational systems can at least assume a new mantle of responsibility by helping individuals orienting themselves in this new realm of knowledge and by recognizing all the skills and knowledge they have acquired including their non-academic know-how. The new tools available in cyberspace enable the prospective of a vast array of automated tests that could be accessed at any time, and skill supply and demand transaction networks. By organizing the communication between employers, individuals, and learning resources of all kinds, universities of the future will make a valuable contribution to the development of a new economy of knowledge.