One day you are in, the next day you are out.

 “One day you are in, the next day you are out.” It’s a familiar quote from Heidi Klum , the host of American reality TV show “Project Runway,” which focus on fashion design. In this TV series, many aspiring fashion designers compete with each other in the hope of becoming the next Karl Lagerfeldt, the world-renowned fashion guru. 

After watching the video of The Network is the Learning and The Changing Nature of Knowledge, I feel this quote fits perfectly in not just the fashion industry, but also the rapidly changing digital era. It is commonly known that a fashion designer can claim his/her fame in fifteen-minutes as well as the information on the internet might become out-of-date overnight. In a sense, a learner today is just like an aspiring fashion designer competes with other contestants in the TV show.” To have a strong emphasis on which knowledge is rapidly involving, it is not just what we know today is important but it is our ability to stay current as knowledge changes.” As a result, no matter how gifted a fashion designer is; she needs to accumulate her knowledge constantly in creating innovation for the next competition as well as a learner needs to build up her know-how in keeping herself updated to survive in the shifting world.

By the same token, Siemens (2005) states that “Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today. A real challenge for any learning theory is to actuate known knowledge at the point of application. When knowledge, however, is needed, but not known, the ability to plug into sources to meet the requirements becomes a vital skill. As knowledge continues to grow and evolve, access to what is needed is more important than what the learner currently possesses.” In other words, learners in the digital world today should be able to synthesize acquired knowledge to incorporate into newly received information.