다중매체 시대의 백과사전 - ‘교육’의 효용을 중심으로 -

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to study on the inner meaning and the effectiveness of the encyclopedia on the current multimedia age. There have been two basic effectiveness, ‘reference’ and ‘education’, and ‘physical property’ as an additional one for the traditional printed encyclopedia. The latest on has been extinct by new digital integrated media like CD-ROM, and the effectiveness of ‘reference’ has been decreased by the internet and the multimedia environment, which can provide various ways to communicate infinite information and knowledge for end users. However, in different perspective, on the multi media age, one of the basic effectiveness of the encyclopedia, as a social infra, ‘education’ seems to be more emphasized. Educational environment on the multimedia age should provide an excessive information to students through diverse media including internet. In case of adults, they are deemed to have an ability and a responsibility to discriminate the turbid sources by themselves, but for the young students on the process of the institutional education, it should not be educative environment. In addition,‘self-directed study’ and ‘integrated education’ methode, which have been emphasized recently, is aim to over the border of each subject in the classroom, in order to cultivate new generation who could be adapted to the future world. In this background, the encyclopedia could be a suitable text, which provides a basic, well structured, reliable, carefully selected, coherent information and knowledge to the students, and also support to reach the purpose of the integrated education through building the network among individual knowledge units. In conclusion, the encyclopedia could be a helpful text, which enhance self-directed study ability of the students, who can understand the relationship among individual factors and knowledge units, not knowledge itself, and build his/her own hierarchy. For example, Encyclopaedia Britannica has built ‘Britannica School Edition’site to meet the concrete requirement from the educational fields of North America,which has emphasized the individual research and debate by each student through his/her own creativity. In Korea, more study about the possibility of the suitable model with the encyclopedia would be required.