Howard Rheingold, old school Internet visionary, writes about smart mobs in the current edition of the Edge (which I’m sorry I had forgotten about; it’s good):
“Combine wearable computing, wireless communications, and peer-to-peer resource sharing, and all the people in a building or a crowd walking down the street can join into ad-hoc networks.
whether, when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) chose the logo for the Information Awareness Office (IAO) [link via BoingBoing], they knew it was also considered the symbol for an international 200-year old conspiracy.
Okay, granted the pyramid-with-eye is on the dollar bill because it’s the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States (which of course feeds the conspiracy theorists). However, IAO’s mission is (and I quote) to “imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components and prototype, closed-loop, information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness useful for preemption; national security warning; and national security decision making.” (Translation: “We use computers to snoop.”)
I can’t imagine that it’s good PR for an organization whose mission is to collect information on “shadowy networks” to choose as their symbol an image that probably has more pop culture ties to conspiracy theorists, than to the Great Seal’s original genesis. . . that is, if that genesis wasn’t all part of the conspiracy!!! (uh…read that last link at your own risk; why do conspiracy theorist seem incapable of practicing reasonable web design?)
From the Washington Post:
“Welcome to the world of Net thinking, a form of reasoning that characterizes many students who are growing up with the Internet as their primary, and in some cases, sole source of research. . . .On the good side, Net thinkers are said to generate work quickly and make connections easily. . . . But they also value information-gathering over deliberation, breadth over depth, and other people’s arguments over their own. This has educators worried.”
Not sure how I feel about this. The article seems to be taking the angle that “My Goodness! They’re getting information from the Web instead of the library so it must be bad!” The value of a library is in the organization, the availability of reference librarians (one of the most underrated jobs in the universe), and to a certain extent the filtering that takes place by the collection manager.
But by no means is information valid or do students use that information well just because it comes from a non-digital source. Trust me — I taught Freshman Composition in pre-WWW days. Your average freshman can’t write worth a damn no matter where they’re plagiarizing from.
The problem here is not the source of the material, but that the prevalence of a vast repository of unfiltered information has uncovered a long-standing problem in education: we don’t — and never have — done a very good job of teaching our students how to make effective use of information. Too many teachers, especially outside the language arts, just check the footnote, and if the source is a “respected” journal, then it gets the imprimatur of acceptance.
Students are taught how to write academic papers for specific academic purposes under abstract, inconsequential academic guidelines, little of which has any actual real-world application outside of a life in academia. And remember — this is coming from a former English professor. I was an important cog in this academic machine. It was my job — literally in my job description! — to teach students how to write within the academic environment.
That microcosm-oriented skill falls to pieces, though, in the face of an onslaught of non-academic information. The academic skills that are too frequently taught (how to be an effective student in academia so you can get an ‘A’) have little relation or relevance to real-world information-processing and -presentation skills (how to evaluate information, how to synthesize information from multiple disparate sources, how to present information from a disparate sources coherently, etc.).
You see this tendency to re-inforce the status quo and fear anything outside it reflected in this article by comments like “We should be encouraging kids to research the difficult truth. …But do school systems really want students using the same tools to question current proprieties and conventional wisdom? Teach kids to be critical thinkers and they’ll be sending it right back at the teacher in the classroom.There is much to worry about.”
Good god. How did we get to the point where teaching kids to be critical thinkers is something to worry about?
I made a pot roast in the crockpot overnight. I love cooking in my sleep. :-)
: New Information Paradigms provides an introductory free account powered by Zope, which I’ve been interested in for awhile.
I have had Zope installed on a local Windows 2000 machine to play around with, but it’s always been hinky. The Zope hosting seems to work well, but because it’s free you’re pretty limited in what Zope “products” you can use (basically, only those that are installed, which are fairly many). Apparently, can’t add accounts either. Understandable — the provide it for free as a sandbox to learn
I hate online quizzes. You know — stuff like “Which Lord of the Rings character are you?” or “What flavor of Ben and Jerry’s are you?” Except this one. It’s pretty good. I like being the Attack Banana. I feel like an Attack Banana. I certainly don’t identify with the Lovesick Green Dolphin Covered With Postage Stamps although I feel a certain affinity for the Angry Spork-Flinging Plaid Wildebeest. Maybe someday I’ll marry an Angry Spork-Flinging Plaid Wildebeest.
I would also be amenable to a “Which postmodern theorist are you?” quiz. I’m pretty sure I’m either a Jean-Francois Lyotard or a Stanley Fish. ;-)
I’ve said it before and before and I’ll say it again: Boucher (who used to be my Congressman from ‘85-’89 when I lived in southwest Virginia) is the best representative in Congress. He’s introducing legislature to restrict the recording industry from selling copy-protected CDs. It’ll never pass (yes, I’m that cynical), but, dammit, Go Rick Boucher!
This white paper [PDF format only] is a collaboration of ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) and Smartforce, a content provider focusing on business and technology learning objects. Interesting overview.
…..DC sucks in the summer:
Listen up folks: tourism is not an excuse for stupidity. I realize that where you come from, “public transportation” probably means hitchin’ a ride in the rusty bed of your neighbor’s 1982 Ford F150 pick-up, but if you and your 17 travelling buddies all shove your way onto an already-crowded 9am Metro train two stops from downtown at the last minute before the doors close (after standing on the platform debating whether you can all fit on together), when you arrive at the next stop some of you can actually step off the friggin’ train to let us commuters off instead of standing there, bug-eyed, blocking the door like mute heifers. Honest to god, you will be able to step right back on the train. It’s like friggin’ magic!