Posts filed under 'Education'
A personal invite goes out to you all for a special sneak preview of my new blog, A Study in Sherlock, set to launch tomorrow. This site is devoted to the life, times and influence of the Great Detective himself, perhaps the most famous fictional character in history.
There’s a tonne of material already in the queue, and so it’s my intention that there will be something new every weekday, and occasionally on weekends. That includes original pieces (many of which are written for newcomers to the Canon), photographs, teasers for the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, illustrations, news stories, book reviews, audio snippets, “workshop” projects (such as do-it-yourself reference cards or CDs), radio plays, and featured sites. Most of these entries are selected to offer something for neophytes, but –hopefully– also provide ample occasion for discourse amongst the more experienced.
I appreciate any and all feedback from you fine folks — a contact form can be accessed from the top menu, and the comment forms are ready to go, so please don’t be shy. I hope you enjoy!
March 12th, 2006
There’s a well-known maxim in advertising circles that you have approximately three seconds to hook your viewing audience with an ad. Within that time, a lot has to happen. Your viewer has to see the ad, assess the overall image, be influenced by the colours, drift to the area of main importance (the “heat”), zero in on the central visual or text message, absorb that, identify the significance of that with one’s own experience in some way, and then make a decision to carry on investigating the message or text. Now, no one tells you how to do this. The human mind is an astonishing contraption, capable of incredibly complex procedures and analysis within milliseconds, and it does all this automatically. The patience so advocated just a half-century ago is a rare commodity, and our little grey cells have been trained, as by a crack military drill, to disregard those advertisements that require more than three seconds’ investment.
Harken back to novels written in Victorian times and compare them to those today, and you’ll get a similar appreciation of how our minds are beginning to change when faced with a rapid-fire deluge of information. Way back when snuff was fashionable and the glimpse of a woman’s ankles was grounds for marriage, novels and stories often began with long and arduous descriptions of setting, delving into the intricacies of weather, tree branches, rock formations, the collapsing of a farmer’s wall down the road, and the progressive deterioration of several generations of day lilies. Today, we tend to favour in media res, beginning in the middle of things. The first paragraph of the first chapter, and we are already on the roller-coaster, holding tight. (Yes, literary pundits will think of a million exceptions here — I’m speaking in generalities.)
And then there’s incoming information, such as news. When you look at century-old newspapers (well, all but the most lurid ones — the Illustrated Police News‘ graphic and gruesome depictions of crimes such as those of Jack the Ripper are a notable exception), you’ll find many long-winded though inconsequential paragraphs that are polite to the point of verbosity, and verbose to the point of inducing sleep. Nowadays, we have approximately two seconds per headline, and –if we’re still interested– approximately three seconds’ reading to decide if we want to carry on with the rest. Hence the snappy, terse and oft-sensational writing of many modern papers and tabloids.
And then there’s that darn source of endless interaction, distraction and inaction, the Internet. How is that affecting the way we take in and process information? A few months ago, I posted an entry here called Who Would You Phone?, wherein I gave the example of a quiz show contestant with a choice to phone either someone with a good general knowledge-base, or someone well-versed with Google; I suspect that most people would choose the latter. This post was just picked up by my favourite educational blog, Weblogg-ed: go there and read Will’s lucid commentary, along with some very interesting ideas from his readers. Meanwhile, I’m just going to follow up with a few more thoughts here on my own little venue.
I’ve always maintained that folks today (and especially children) living in a technological society are being forced to adapt to a new way of learning and understanding, one that puts into place a number of “filters” to sift through vast quantities of information, gather the pertinent items, allocate a certain importance to each nugget found, and then bring these often-disparate items into some sort of tighter and holistic focus (which is quite close to the “vetting, synthesizing and recognizing patterns” that Will mentions on Weblogg-ed). Faced with over a thousand pieces of significant information per hour, how would we not? Bloglines, del.icio.us, DEVONthink/ DEVONagent, Tinderbox, Zoot, Copernic, and other web-based and client-side applications are there to help us, of course, as is the ability of Google to present results by way of both popularity and pertinence (well, depending on your search skills, of course).
And while we can teach people about acquiring and fine-tuning certain of these filters, most of them will come naturally over time as we learn to deal more effectively with the deluge of data. It’s similar to how we’ve learned to implement a “three second timer.”
Now, while it was never my intention in the original article to propose a return to yesterday (I definitely prefer the instant access of online library catalogues over their card brethern, and I use Wikipedia far more often than its two-hundred pound cousin atop the bookshelves), my main concern was how we were displacing knowledge with information retrieval. That contraption inside our skulls is a far more powerful computer than any search engine, and its primary strength relies upon its ability to analyse. Chief, then, is the comprehension of an undercurrent beneath the facts, upon which the facts can be seen and understood in their proper perspective. For example, while we don’t need to remember all the gods atop Mount Olympus, we should be familiar with the notion of myth and how it applies to our understanding of culture, history, religion and science. The dates pertaining to the rise and fall of the Third Reich mean little without realising the how and why. It’s the age-old and interdependent cycle of analysis and facts: facts, by themselves, are quite useless. Information retrieval, in itself, means nothing without the ability to process that data.
So, yes, filters are important in this age. But I lament the situation of many students I know who believe that finding information quickly is an excellent substitute for knowing or understanding it.
To be sure, we gather and we filter more effectively each day. And our power of analysis is just as robust today as ever. So where does the problem lie?
The missing link today, I maintain, is the ability to focus. This is the private time, the breathing space, that the mind needs to assimilate and digest the information. Think about cramming for an exam — spending a day or two of intense study– as opposed to paying attention to the material all throughout a semester and learning it slowly, incrementally. One results in a quick but lacklustre pass, while the other leads to long-term understanding of the subject. Each day we cram more into our skulls, and understand less, because we are devaluing the notion of focus.
How to focus, though, is quite another matter, and one that differs so much per individual, circumstance and subject matter that it becomes impossible to produce a one-size-fits-all answer. For example, I find I can focus better on productivity issues –on gathering facts, analysing them, and making decisions– with a paper-based planner system. I learn facts better by sitting down in a nice cozy chair, in a room free of distractions, with a real book. I focus upon digital data by gathering all the important stuff into DEVONthink, letting it come up with correlations, and musing upon how it all fits together. And I’m far more creative when I can focus on a piece of paper or a whiteboard for extended periods in a room with creative individuals, instead of a solitary computer screen. That works for me — other people will find better tools for the job.
Really, it’s all about learning to think through the noise. Gathering, filtering and analysing are skills learned by exposure and experience, but focus is the only thing we must try hard to achieve. Lack of it is the single greatest obstacle to productivity and education today, one that can’t be solved simply by throwing more technology and data at it. Indeed, those three seconds may become two.
January 8th, 2006
Back in 1986, during my last year of high school, there was a radio trivia contest to win tickets to a concert. I didn’t have much money, but I really wanted to go see this particular group, so I sat myself beside the radio one Monday morning, phone in hand, and waited. Now, my head has always been overflowing with completely useless information –probably more so at that time in my life– so I knew I stood just as good a chance as anybody else. Finally, they asked the question: “What was David Bowie’s theatrical rock-star persona backed by the Spiders from Mars?” I dialed as quickly as I could, but (hampered by my old rotary phone, no doubt) I was not the first, and so didn’t win the tickets. For three more mornings, I did the same, each time knowing the answer, but failing to be the first to call. On that Friday, however, the question was much harder: “Whose band did Canadian singer Gowan borrow for the recording of his Strange Animal LP?” This time I won the tickets. (The answer, by the way, is Peter Gabriel, who was recording in the same studio around the same time.)
I was proud of my accomplishment, elated by that vindication of the sheer width and breadth of the mostly impractical data stogged tight into my brain. It seems a little foolish in retrospect, but the accumulation of knowledge was –for me– the most distinguishing facet of my self-identity.
Back then, information was far less transitory. I remember reading and studying endlessly, trying to retain every nugget of information I could, whether it was useful or not. Now, I have become lazy. When a question is asked and I don’t know the response, a quick search on the Net will generally take me directly to the right information. The question answered, the details then drop away from my mind, and I usually forget it completely. I suspect most people do this nowadays, relying upon the Net far more than memory. When someone dials a friend from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, are they really choosing their most knowledgeable friend, or simply the fastest with Google? Who would you phone?
I have a very large library, encompassing thousands of books and covering hundreds of topics (many quite obscure), and I’m very proud of it. The problem is, sometimes I neglect to use it. The other night, I spent the better part of an hour Googling for information about tree identification. I found lots of bits and pieces, but little of any coherent and wide-ranging coverage. Then I realised… there were several books on the bookshelf behind me concerning that very topic. Yes, I can be oblivious at time, but in this case I think it was more a matter of how technology is changing the way I seek and retain knowledge. My need for a “quick fix” led me to a search engine, and not the shelves.
All of this makes me a little concerned for students today. True, the Internet is probably the best resource possible for scholars and teachers: the world’s largest conceivable library, with mostly free access to almost any snippet of information mere moments away. But with so much data, so free-flowing, has information become a mere tool, like pencils and erasers, fit for the moment and then quickly discarded once beyond its utility?
One might make the point that there was no guarantee that students would remember information culled from a paper encyclopedia, or that they might retain information of no pertinent and practical usage. But information was harder to come by, and –I believe– dissected slower. They say that in 1900, we encountered 1000 pieces of significant information per six months. In 1960, it was within one week. Today, it’s within one hour. How much knowledge can we actually retain when our “seven plus or minus two” short-term memories have to constantly filter, direct and trash most of that data?
It also begs a question: which is better, the instant access to vast quantities of lower-quality (on average, that is) information, or the more difficult access to rarer quantities of high-quality information? A Google search, or the hefty Encyclopaedia Britannica up on the library shelves? The accumulated and often erroneous perspective of thousands of writers, or the careful crafting and fact-checking by a skilled few? (This, of course, is one of the main reasons given by the Britannica company for continuing to use their rather costly work instead of the Net at large, and especially the Wikipedia.)
I wonder how long will it be before each student carries PDAs that display answers to any common question at the click of a button? (The time is almost here, I know.) Where, then, will that lead the education system, and how can it adjust to the notion of near-instantaneous research replacing memory?
I’ve been spending a lot of time recently wondering about this, how our educational tools might better compensate for new ways of learning, filtering information and retaining useful knowledge. Many minds far greater than mine are occupied by these same thoughts, I would guess.
Hmm… perhaps I can Google for them….
October 7th, 2005
There’s a little light at the end of the tunnel with regard to my workload, so I’m taking this time to mention the status of the D*I*Y Planner.
First, there is still no version 2.0 of OpenOffice.org yet, so my template kit is still pending its “any day now” release. I am quite encouraged by the drawing tools in the beta, but the program still rather buggy at this time.
Second, my focus for the next while will be on “add-on” packages for the D*I*Y Planner which would be targeted towards more specialised users. The first two will be Education and Creativity. I’m still very much in the embryonic stages of what’s to be included, and how they will be structured.
Which brings me to the reason for this post: are there any students and teachers out there who have ideas about what you’d like to see in the D*I*Y Education Package? Currently, I only have the following templates in process:
- Lesson Plan
- Unit Plan
- Course Overview
- Materials
- Bibliography (MLA), including an index card variant
- HowTo: MLA Citations
- Timetable, both five-day and blank versions
- A marking template or two
- Attendance
- Perhaps some new brainstorming charts?
I lean towards the arts, not the sciences, so MLA is my first choice for documenting sources. That being said, I can see no reason why I couldn’t create other styles while I’m at it. I would like a few pros to double-check my work, though.
If you have any suggestions for additional templates, I’d love to hear from you: please leave a comment below or send me an email. (My address is found at the bottom of the menu at right.) Scholars, educators, students and educational methodologies being what they are, I sincerely doubt that these templates will suit everybody’s needs, but I’m trying to ensure that I take into account as many as possible. Your feedback is thus very important to me.
May 26th, 2005
Just working around the clock….
On the plus side, I think I finally found my Holy Grail of personal content management, the new version of DEVONthink (Mac OS X only, I’m afraid). It hasn’t impressed me as an ideal solution in the past, but the last few iterations are amazing. It’s been quite an enabling little beast for my job at hand, allowing me to sift through thousands of pages of text (plain, RTF, HTML and PDF), find related entries, track my sources, manage all related media, and write various documents without bother or fuss. Its capabilities are constantly surprising me. Stay tuned for a write-up….
April 29th, 2005
New article in the UK newspaper The Observer: Why encyclopaedic row speaks volumes about the old guard:
According to the laws of aerodynamics, the bumblebee should not be able to fly. Yet fly it manifestly does, albeit in a stately fashion. So much for the laws of aerodynamics.
Much the same applies to Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia written, edited and maintained by its readers. Or, to put it another way, written, edited and maintained by anyone who can be bothered to log in and change it. By all laws of reference-work publishing, Wikipedia ought to be a disaster. Yet it is exactly the opposite - an exceedingly useful online reference work often consulted by this columnist and countless others.
While I seem to remember some scientist on the Discovery Channel attempting to debunk the myth of the bee’s aerodynamic instability, the metaphor is nevertheless a good one. Wikipedia is generally my first choice of reference, before I ever hit Google.
January 19th, 2005
An all-too-important site that I must take the time to mention: Digital Copyright Canada. Lately. Canada has been pursuing a number of initiatives that will prove damaging over the course of the next few years, mainly out of complete ignorance of what the Internet is, and what it’s capable of being.
As a producer of multimedia products, design work and plenty of written material, I understand the need for Intellectual Property rights. People have put plenty of time, effort and ideas into their products, and need to be compensated (that is, if they choose to be). So what’s the problem?
At issue here is the way the proposed system is a “catch-all” for all types of media, no matter what the source or intended end-use. This shows a misunderstanding of how the Net works. For example, what happens when, in this blog, I quote a passage from another blog or a news source? What happens when I put up some snapshots I took of my friend’s wedding? Creating a website of essays to share my thoughts? Even linking to another site without their permission? Copyright lawyers warn that the “Internet-friendly” update of the Copyright Act, as well as the ratification of the WIPO treaty, will suddenly legally jeopardise all of the above. Which means the potential for rampant suing, primitive hair-trigger notice-and-takedown policies, government-mandated witch hunts, and more.
It’s not the need to pursue valid Intellectual Property protection that I have an issue with: it’s the right to speak freely and without fear, it’s the right to share ideas and communicate with others, and it’s the right to learn without legal restriction. All these things and more are at risk today.
Digital Copyright Canada is a news site providing a running list of news reports, blog entries and initiatives that affect the rights of Canadians (and anybody else in danger of signing the WIPO treaty) wishing to share ideas. There, you’ll find more links than I could possibly offer in my blog.
Also, find a great summary of some of the notice-and-takedown issues on BoingBoing (written by Cory Doctorow, who is certainly coming out of his corner with fists flying), and a fledgeling online petition at PetitionSpot.
November 18th, 2004
Get yer red hot Moodle 1.4.2 here. Improvements include a number of security fixes, so they recommend that anyone running an older version should upgrade to this new one.
I’m really learning to love Moodle. But I’m an education tech junkie, anyway, so it’s a natural fit. Once of these days, when I have some time to spare (there’s that old delusion, again), I’m going to delve into its guts to figure out how to add a few organisational modules.
November 18th, 2004
Long and well-researched article from the blog incorporated subversion: Communication dynamics: Discussion boards, weblogs and the development of communities of inquiry in online learning environments. A little dense for perusal before your morning coffee (unless you live and breathe academics), but the writing is very thorough and raises a number of very important points regarding how best to use weblogs, wikis, forums and other online educational tools to their best advantage.
October 14th, 2004
A new peer-reviewed journal concerning online education has debuted. Innovate’s first issue can be found here: Innovate - October/November 2004 Volume 1, Issue 1. Published by Nova Southeastern University, the journal requires free registration, which I personally regard as a bit of a hassle if you just want to skim the content. So far, though, I am impressed with the content, which seems mostly down-to-earth and practical rather than the typical academic fluff thrown down from the ivory towers.
October 13th, 2004
From the English as a Second Language educational journal TESL-EJ comes a quick overview of Moodle, complete with screenshots and details about the standard modules: Moodle: A Virtual Learning Environment for the Rest of Us . One of the last parts, about the system slowing down if you have a whole school using it, is standard fare for most web-based applications, which is why powerful (and multiple) servers are often used for dynamic content. Don’t see that as any sort of handicap.
Educational geeks, take heed… this is a great tool to deliver courses and training, especially from a distance.
October 8th, 2004
Recently, I was annoyed to discover that the last six books I’ve wanted to purchase are all out of print. One is by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, and a man whose works I would have figured to never see the end of print. Another tome, related to my recent surge of interest in the Great Detective and his author, is a famous collection of essays. A third book is on dinosaurs and paleontology, written in the 1970’s –a seminal piece highly regarded by many experts. The final three are an anthology of Soviet science fiction, a retrospective on the life and art of Alfred Hitchcock, and a volume on the medieval and cultural history of Brittany, France. What do all these books have in common?
All six books are cultural discards, items of once-great importance (at least in certain circles) whose conception and aspect defined or illustrated the leading edge of thought, science, history or art, if only for a few years, before their ideas were no longer revolutionary or popular. Then, like the passages of Shakespeare that have become so commonplace as to be boring, they became mere footnotes to our history that few people ever bother to read.
The next time your local library has a discard sale, stop by and browse the titles. You’ll see all manner of books that have been ousted from their shelves because of an idea no longer popular, of a trend whose time has come and gone, of stories no longer pertinent to this exact date and time. Let this thought rattle around your brain for a while: many of these books will never see print again. These words won’t be stamped by a press, won’t be collected in anthologies, won’t be reworked in new editions, won’t even be saved on some archival CD-ROM somewhere. They will vanish like so much smoke, and the words and thoughts and labours of these passionate authors will never be seen by human eyes again. A thousand legacies are lost every day.
This is not to say Sirs Arthur or Hitchcock will not become trendy again one day. And of course, there are a million texts residing in archives and databases that were part of vast print runs, and that will, after copyright expires, probably meander their way to an Internet site somewhere for free or inexpensive release to all who desire them. But for every classic that is preserved, there are thousands that slip between the cracks and disappear from our collective memory. Ask any scholar, university student, or person with a passion for a niche, and they will tell you of the many hundreds of out-of-print books that they tried to find without success.
Aside from the scholastic and cultural viewpoints, there’s a personal angle as well. Let’s say your great-grandfather penned a book. Wouldn’t you want to read his words, learn about his world view, enjoy his turns of phrase, and wonder aloud at how the story’s love interest might have actually been your great-grandmother? And his words, no matter how much they mean to you, will probably mean much more to somebody else, somewhere. Any arrow, fired randomly into the air, will eventually find its target.
So what can we do about losing these works forever? The answer –it would seem– is quite simple, given today’s technology. There are many pieces of software that perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and all you need is a low-cost ($50) scanner to start inputting books into digital archives, pictures and all. “But,” you say (like any good citizen duly concerned with intellectual property), “isn’t it improper to steal the works of others like this?” Well, there is, if I recall correctly, the notion of creating limited copies for personal use, not to be distributed, which is why there are photocopiers in every library. Scanning works now, along with all the pertinent facts about authors, publishers, copyright dates, classifications, etc., will preserve these books before we lose them forever. If we were to upload these personal copies to an institution that can act as a “digital vault” for them, once the copyright ends, they can be released and read by all. Likewise, publishers producing new books can do the same, and submit the texts to this trusted vault for archival purposes. There are already some institutions which gather books, such as the US Library of Congress, but these books are all-but-inaccessible to the masses, and the acidic paper they are printed on has a relatively short life span. Digitally, they can live forever, and be freely distributed at little-to-no cost.
The concept needn’t stop there: how about music, radio series, television programs, films? Well, these do take up tremendous amounts of digital space, and are probably not feasible at the moment — comparatively, text takes next to no space, and even a regular CD-ROM can store hundreds of books. But this doesn’t mean it isn’t an option for other media in the near future.
Meanwhile, we should endeavour to save the books we have. I know I have collected many literary oddities over the years, and intend to take a few hours every now and then to create digital versions. If they were ever lost in a fire, I should never see those words again, and my heart would be broken. In my library alone, I’m sure I have at least 500 books both out of print and very difficult to find in any form. While for me, nothing replaces the sight, smell and tactile sensations of a real honest-to-goodness paper book, at least if we save the words, books can be made from them again in the future. And while no digital vault currently exists, perhaps we can pursuade some enlightened institute to act as gatherer and gatekeeper in the next few years.
Meanwhile, the next time you stumble across a neglected volume at a discard sale, peruse the words and see if they mean enough to you to save for future generations. If they do, plunk down your quarter, take it home, and think about preserving those words forever. Else, they’ll wind up in a historical landfill.
October 6th, 2004
From Paul Graham, the author of Hackers and Painters, comes an entertaining and tell-it-like-it-is article entitled The Age of the Essay. Graham’s writings straddle an ineresting line that runs between modern technology and the traditional realm of art and literature. Delving deeping into history, geography, aethetics and the precepts of creating art, and comparing what he finds to the development of technologies, he has a talent of bringing two often-disparate worlds together in a way that makes absolute sense.
Even if you aren’t technically-inclined, this piece is filled with good, honest and practical advice about writing essays and other non-fiction works.
October 2nd, 2004
A Wikipedia press release states that Wikipedia has now reached one million articles, that 2500 new articles are being added each day, and that 25000 changes occur daily. That is an incredible amount of information! The press release also announces a fundraising drive, and gives a nice encapsulated overview of the project. Congratulations to the team on this amazing milestone.
On a related note, an article at kuro5hin gives some insights as to how the Wikipedia has come to be as well-written and accurate as it is. An interesting glimpse at human dynamics, culture and technology.
September 21st, 2004
From the New York Times: In the Classroom, Web Logs Are the New Bulletin Boards (try BugMeNot if you want to avoid registering).
Like most NYT articles, this one may soon disappear into the “pay-for” archives. Save or print the text if you want to keep it.
Also, an excellent and detailed article on educational blogging (with a Canadian slant, to boot), from the Educause Review: http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0450.asp.
September 15th, 2004
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