Because It Was the Only Way

Norman Constantine left a really striking comment on a post here recently, saying:

"We memorized before the internet not because it was the best way to learn but because it was the only way to have recall."

Would love to hear folks' opinions; I think Norman may have struck on something very interesting: traditionally, we think of prior knowledge generally as an internal thing; but could we not imagine a future where prior knowledge is a public or external thing?

And how best would we teach our kids in such a world? By continuing to plug knowledge into them or by plugging them into the knowledge?