ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the ways in which adults and children can engage with information and knowing. Acting on these substantive possibilities requires new thinking about the why, what and how of young children playing and learning in the digital age and also raises significant areas for critical debate as innovation builds on and re-configures the cultural context of everyday life. The advent of the internet was followed by the invention of the World Wide Web as a new and powerful medium of interactive communication. As a large-scale social response to changing social norms following the end of World War II, the counter-cultural revolution focused attention on notions of participatory democracy and anti-authoritarianism. Social media sites allowed people to create their own content — through the generation of written commentary and posting of video footage and photographs. The semantic web raises questions about the relationship between individuals and knowledge and the act of knowing and learning.
