"For the Google generation, what happens to the concepts of truth and
knowledge in a user-generated world of information saturation?"
Monica Hesse, Washington Post reporter, takes a fascinating look at how we view the truth in an age when information is readily available and abundant.
The discussion of knowledge vs information is also interesting. "Information has replaced knowledge," says author Felipe Fernandez-Arnesto, quoted in the article. He says information is about crumbs of data, while knowledge is knowing what to do with accumulated information. What worries people (teachers, included) is that students are now information gatherers but not critical thinkers.
"That’s the most profound change," said Corbin Lyday, professor at George Washington University about many of his students compared to 30 years ago. "The way they manage information. There’s a growing impatience and a real passivity."
Also, people are too easily convinced that the information is correct and true and "use information to reinforce their own beliefs," Hesse says in the article, listing as an example the 9,000 hits in Google for "The moon landing was staged."
We at FA are also trying to navigate through these muddy waters as we work with our students. But it becomes even harder when we consider that research says, "we believe what we want to believe."
"People are very insensitive to where they hear things," says Norbert Schwarz, a University of Michigan
psychologist who worked on the study. If one quack repeats the same
piece of information to you five times, it’s nearly as effective as
hearing the sound bite from five different reputable sources.
Same goes for reading e-mails — if you get three spam e-mails
relating Abraham Lincoln’s folksy wisdom about truth and dogs, you’ll
eventually believe it as strongly as if you heard it from the reference
desk at the Lincoln Library.
"The basic psychological process is the same" as it’s always been,
Schwarz says. "But in the olden days you might have seen something once
in your newspaper . . . now the likelihood that you’ll see it again and
again and again" — on blogs, in your inbox, on YouTube — has
exploded."
All of this, of course, reinforces the need for our students to participate in the discussions of their learning. And is makes me realize how complicated teaching has become.
Beginning with Sheryl’s 9 principles for implementation in this shift is an excellent start. As Sheryl says, "it’s not business as usual."
Image: ‘need to know basis‘
www.flickr.com/photos/86176561@N00/124771501
One of the best ways to find new tools is Jane Knight’s site, Jane’s E-Learning Pick of the Day. Today she links to a PDF with the top 100 tools, compiled from readers. Included is a subset of 25 key free tools for learning. Check it out.
One that I hadn’t seen yet is FreeMind, an open source product. Another product I haven’t yet tried is Captivate, an Adobe tool for screen capturing, recording of podcasts, and making quizzes. Not free, of course, but seems robust. Has anyone else used this?
As a middle-school English teacher, I always taught my students to cite their sources, give
proper attribution, and never give the impression that someone else’s
idea is your own.
A new wrinkle in this is giving credit to someone in the blogsphere for a tweet on Twitter or a post or comment on a blog.
When I
send out a tweet or write up a post, I try to link to
the original source. But with the avalanche of information coming at me, I find it nearly impossible to track. Plus, current
thinking is that with many people now using Creative Commons licensing,
writing and photos will be used all over the web, mashed, stretched,
re-worked, and re-vamped. I know I’ve found many photos with no
attribution (and I’ve done it, too, when I forget to go back to copy
and paste). If you take the photo from that post, do you give the secondary user
credit?
Complicated.
Early this morning, I first saw the story about the student jailed in Egypt using Twitter to reach out for help on a post by Michael Arrington on Tech Crunch, or was it Chris Brogan’s site? I’m not even sure anymore since it also popped up at least 10 times
on different Twitter accounts as first-time tweets and many other blogs
during the day. If I decided to write about it later, I would have had
a difficult time trying to remember where I first saw the reference.
(And I know and remember the old, "if it’s mentioned in five or more
sources, you don’t need to cite it…but go with me here.)
Many
times I see tweets and posts about reviews for videos or applications
I’ve already tried. So if I choose to write about them later, whom do I
credit? Or do I, if I’ve stumbled upon them myself but have also read
someone else’s review? What about referencing comments on a blog? What if the comments have moved to another blog? I’m not talking link love, here. I’m talking old-fashioned, getting the attribution right.
The conversations about how to sustain archives of digital information are also fascinating, given that information may not always be with us in the existing format.
"How do we archive information when the technology to read it, and indeed the information itself, changes so fast?" asks Josh Catone on The Read Write Web.
The
past few days, I’ve read several posts about giving credit where credit
is due. Some folks want to be recognized for breaking the story first,
even though it’s darn near impossible for anyone to know who said what
first. And what about RSS feed sharing? Who owns the information? Does it matter anymore.
Frankly, the only reason I care is that we’ve been teaching our students the importance of proper attribution forever. When I work with students and teachers, I want to be thoughtful in supporting their research and citing of sources in however they decide to present, publish, write, or digitize. Shouldn’t we all be saying the same thing?
Ah, life was easier when I could pick up a book, grab the information, and follow MLA style.
Even Robert Scoble weighed in on this, saying:
"The
era when bloggers could control where the discussion of their stuff
took place is totally over.This is a trend that the best bloggers
should embrace. Me? I follow wherever the conversation takes me.
As someone else wrote: steal my content please."
If
anyone is developing new guidelines for their students, I would love to
know. How do you cite Twitter, for example? I couldn’t find anything on
MLA when I looked. Carolyn? Anyone? Do we even bother to cite it?
For all I know, someone has already written this post. I just can’t find it.
Just thinking, here….
Image: ‘At Odds – Day 27‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33063906@N00/373863333
One of the challenges we face is how to teach students to search well.
Jane Knight posted this interesting new tool, Boolify, which seems ideal for children–and, well, some of us adults, too!
By moving icons, such as "and" "but" and "or" onto the screen, one is able to use search terms to limit those ever-expanding internet searches.
I am definitely going to explore this one.
Early this morning, I opened my Google Reader and linked from this to this, a history teacher’s blog I hadn’t read before.
As I read through some of Glen Wiebe‘s posts (and many are posts to which I’ll return), this one about a new book caught my eye. I had been to Borders earlier in the day and almost purchased it.
(I was after presentation ideas in this book instead, and it deserves a separate post later.)
The 12 rules in Brain Rules provide "nice research and examples to
explain how we interact with our environment and each other, especially
how we as teachers can impact student learning," Wiebe says.
They are all fascinating statements, but this one in particular jumped out at me:
EXPLORATION | Rule #12: We are powerful and natural explorers.
Next, I wanted to look something up in my Reader, and a link from Dana Huff took me to another great read, teacher Lisa Huff, who posted about a new tool, Moonfruit, which may be what I am looking for–a way to post student portfolios online.
When I finally decided to write a post about this serendipity, I went to grab a picture from Flickrcc and discovered you can now edit your pictures in Picnik from the front page!
All in all, it’s been a productive morning. And it’s only 7:30 am!
Image: ‘Morning Mist on the Dumoine II‘
www.flickr.com/photos/17875539@N00/542306837
We started spring break today
So with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no one else home, I propped up my feet and started to clean up my laptop.
One of my old bookmarks, which I’ve transfered from machine to machine, was labeled "blogs."
Now, these days, I don’t save blogs in my bookmarks. I use RSS like everyone else I know.
I chuckled to discover my first blog, and that back in June of 2004, I was sending a post to my teachers to "learn RSS."
Funny.
Four years ago.
And I’m still sending out the same messages.
Then, I was the lone user. Now, I am happy to report many teachers in my school use RSS. And they blog. And they twitter. And they teach me things.
This was a happy discovery.
My job is done.
I can relax.
Image: ‘A Picture Share3‘
www.flickr.com/photos/48600072071@N01/124936
Have you ever been to a concert–a big concert–and sat there staring at the performers, thinking: "Oh my gosh, I’m seeing [insert name]. I can’t believe it!"
I felt some of that yesterday, when David Warlick came to town. I’ve been reading David’s work for years, and to finally hear him in person was such a pleasure.
Talk about quiet confidence. Vision. Presentation skills.
I ustreamed the event, a first at a conference for me. Chatting with the 17 people in the chat, figuring out where to aim the camera, and listening and reflecting to David’s thoughts were challenging at first, but soon I was multi-tasking like a …..beginner. Nothing pro about my work, but listen to David’s keynote and you’ll be inspired.
It was also fun to see the members of the VAIS tech committee on which I used to serve. And seeing Jamie Britto from Collegiate took me back. I attended a conference in, I think it was 1999 or 2000, where he led us in discussions about using tech in the classroom. So long ago. Funny how we are, in some ways, still saying the same things. And yet the world is different.
Today, my colleague Jennifer and I will present on using web 2.0 tools for ourselves and our students. After some difficult conversations at school this week about what our vision is for teaching and learning, I am struggling to get my head around what these tools truly mean for us. How do they fit into the big picture of how we learn, how we can help our students learn, and what they mean in this "flat world."
Of course, it’s not the tools themselves but a philosophy of education–and I can’t go there until I have more coffee.
I read this blog fairly regularly, and this particular post (which I just re-read) hit me right over the head today…..hope he doesn’t mind that I copied it here….(what’s the protocol for this?)
- That being open to learning often means being challenged, being
surprised, being overwhelmed, and being wrong. Sometimes all of these
things at once. And it’s OK.
- That some of the best learning experiences come from being vulnerable– a key part of being open– and vulnerability’s OK.
- That vulnerability– even the good kind– often involves fear. And fear’s OK.
- That none of these things matter if you don’t care and the
fact that you don’t care isn’t always– or even often– your fault. It’s
not a permanent condition. It’s OK to care.
- That the upper register of caring is in harmony with passion
and while we can’t all be passionate about the same things we can
respect it when we see it, hold onto it when we discover it, and look
for it everywhere. Go ahead: dig through the drawers, go for dessert
first, wonder aloud, and ask big questions. It’s OK.
- That being passionate can make us strangers in our own skin–
not to mention our world of friends, acquaintances, peers and family–
and that’s OK.
- That wonder is just one down-stroke past wander, you can’t
have the first if you don’t do the second, and wonder isn’t only
wanting to know something you don’t, but a state of being, as in being
awestruck or being in love.
Image: ‘Dream‘
www.flickr.com/photos/86708826@N00/149049741
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