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6 Rev. U. Soc. Conocimiento 1 (2009)

handle is hein.journals/intjedth6 and id is 1 raw text is: E Revista de Universidad y Socieda del Conocimiento http://rusc.uoc.edu Internet, Social Networks and Education Josep |. M Duart Professor at t/h UOC Faculty of Pschology and Educational ScIences and director of the UNESCO Chair of e-/earning The impact that the Internet has had, and is still having on creating and furthering social networks is indisputable. Educators and educational institutions, particularly universities, cannot remain oblivious to this phenomenon. For this reason, at RUSC, we have decided to dedicate a monographic to digital culture and creative practices in education. Digital culture is a concept that is under discussion. Both words, digital and culture, embrace a wide range of meanings. We might say that the digital world has contributed new forms of artistic expression to culture. A visit to any of the principal museums of modern art offers evidence for this. What is not so evident is the relationship between digital culture and educational practice, especially in higher education, and the relevance and topical nature of the monographic in the current issue stems from this. The Internet is a space of creativity; it was from the beginning and is becoming more so day by day due to the possibilities of intercommunication that are brought about with ever widening scope. The phenomenon of social networks, getting more and more popular, offers interesting indicators of social participation and collective influ- ence. The question we have to ask is this: How are we using this potential for creativity in our higher education institutions? To our mind the answer should be analysed from an institutional and an educational perspective. The university, as a key institution in the society of information and knowledge, must foster the generation of spaces for creativity. Creativity generates knowledge and is the basis of the university as an institution. The creation of space for creativity is not founded solely on access to technology or to the Internet. Spaces for creativity are generated and managed, they are the fruit of strategic institutional planning. Universities should reflect on the use of the social network phenomenon and creativity as part of their institutional function and not just as something complementary to their educational activity. The web and its potential for creativity should reach beyond the tech- nology departments and become the base for active institutional policy. Teaching staff face the challenge of being open to the changes taking place in communicative areas and social usage of the Internet. The real transformation lies in educational dynamics, in the educational process going on in the class room and, increasingly, outside. Active and social use of the Internet cannot be ignored in teachers' plan- ning. Even though some might - erroneously - want to base their teaching on the transmission of knowledge, it is today no longer possible to do so only in a unidirectional way. The creative dynamics of the Internet is of great help to the collaborative building of knowledge, and the current applications analysed in this volume's monographic, as well as future ones, should, in our opinion, be present in the teachers' planning. I would like to conclude this editorial by pointing out, as we publish the sixth edition of RUSC, that the journal has attained a high level of indexing in journal evaluation databases and that we have achieved noteworthy international positioning, a large number of readers and, most importantly, recognition in the world-wide scientific RUSC VOL. 6 N.o I (2009) ISSN 1698-580x

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