- Teaching Civil War History 2.0 (New York Times)
- Is the Google Making Us Stupid (Atlantic Monthly)
- Physicists Seek to Lose the Lecture as a Teaching Tool (NPR)
Friday, January 25, 2013
3 Cautionary Readings
From the three readings listed below, comment upon some of the challenges we face as teachers in the classroom. Reflect and respond to this blog, and be prepared to discuss these three articles during our next class.
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As a science educator for many years, I’m most aware of the continuing expansion of factual information. I believe that this growth of knowledge demands that teachers acquire more than content but the digital search skills that will enable them to learn new stuff. Because the digital sources available to students are considerable it necessitates that learners in this new digital age acquire not just research skills but perhaps more important the expertise to select, and evaluate this information effectively. As the New York Times article,Teaching Civil War History, points out it seems students turn first to their search engines to find information; they conduct a few key-word searches and click on the most popular results without questioning either the search engine’s ranking algorithm or the source of the content. It is scary. I’ve never been that good with regular library searches but have found Internet searches easier. But perhaps our greatest blessing is really our greatest curse. Again, as the article points out the larger concern is the apparent lack of attention that teachers and administrators have paid to instructing students to properly use search engines and evaluate digital sources. Perhaps schools should require a class that all students complete on search skills. For that matter perhaps a required class is needed in the teacher credential degree. I’ve been trying to continually update my teaching to incorporate these new digital literacy skills. It’s a challenge for teachers but also for parents as well, to try and keep up with accelerating technological developments. I must admit that at times I resist teaching digital media skills because I wasn't taught that way. This apprehension is surely shared by many other teachers. It can be an obstacle in educating students in this new digital age.
ReplyDeleteRay Cinti
Is the Google Making Us Stupid?
ReplyDeleteAuthor Nicholas Carr in his article remarks; “The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after.” Of course as Carr states; “The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many” but his worry is that this new way of reading and searching is literally reshaping our brains.
I found this comment an interesting one; “media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.” I wonder just how true this is. I would agree that the physiology of the brain is adaptive. We all could agree with that, but how far in this case matters. I wish I had the time to read these long-term neurological and psychological experiments that might provide a definitive picture of how Internet use affects cognition.
Do the ways, the speed and dept of how we investigate, research, and learn change the minds aptitude. In a Biological sense when the environment changes it will select for beings in the group that can handle those changes best. In a few generations the organisms are then better adapted in this new playing field.
Perhaps when the environment changes organisms that can adjust, survive best.
Potentially these changes are for the best considering the multitude of information before us today. It isn’t simple but simply knowing the details of content isn’t as important than getting a big picture and looking for connections. I would argue, perhaps not very strongly, that being the deep sea scuba diver isn’t the best way of getting to know your ocean any more. Perhaps that guy cruising on a Jet Ski maybe the new way, and in this environment, that’s best. Change is going to happen and being ”middle aged” I can see both sides. All I can say is Socrates would die if he could see the Internet and kids texting all day long.
I think it is true that our brains will become different based on how reading occurs. We can expect as well that the circuits woven by our use of the Net will be different from those woven by our reading of books and other printed works. Yes I agree, but we need to remain calm perhaps this new way is the best way given the change in the environment. The human brain is almost infinitely malleable. The issue is I don’t understand how my brain works, but my brain is what I rely on to understand how things work. Is that a problem? I’m not sure how to tell.
Ray Cinti
Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool
ReplyDelete“Lecturing has never been an effective teaching technique and now that information is everywhere, some say it's a waste of time. Indeed, physicists have the data to prove it.”
Lecture is a waste of time? Let’s just slow that down and think about it. Let’s not generalize every presentation, as a simply reading of a textbook aloud shall we. What about the art of story telling? I would argue that’s what I’m trying to do in class, telling stories. Yes there is content but there are also characters, there is plot, questions, mystery, and inquiry. It is all part of the master plan to lead them to engagement. The experience of doing is key when teaching science. Yes, we shouldn’t teach someone to cook by talking to them. The key is being an active learner and experimenting. The learning cycle can be moved around if you are clever. You could start by doing and then follow with content. Students can participate. Questions are posed discussion with peers and then a larger discussion follows. Yes, material can be found in a book or Internet, but I still believe motivation is the key. The student needs to be inspired!
The key is to have the students read before class. What I’m doing these days is to get them to watch a video podcast before coming to class. While in class we are getting into some of the best discussions ever.
I also I’m wondering about this “test” that has been given to tens of thousands of students around the world and the results were virtually the same everywhere. “The traditional lecture-based physics course produces little or no change in most students' fundamental understanding of how the physical world works.” Maybe, but come on, Physics is difficult! What are the controls in this experiment? In the end it’s true, sage on the stage, the source of knowledge and information, is a thing of the past and guide on the side is best.
Ray Cinti
Teaching Civil War History 2.0
ReplyDeleteDigital literacy means not only technological knowledge, but using the Internet in an intelligent way as well. On the one hand, the Internet provides us with a limitless information resource, but, on the other hand, it requires such skills as being able to use it wisely. Kids need to be taught what the possible dangers and downsides of using the Internet are. Just as mentioned in the article, not all the information found on the Internet can be considered as reliable and relevant. But whose task is it to teach kids how to make a difference between valid, trusted sites and the ones that cannot be relied on? More and more schools consider digital literacy as one of their priorities and require their students to use the Internet for their studies. If students are expected to carry out researches on the Internet in order to be able to complete their tasks and assignments, it is the schools’ responsibility to teach them how to search and what can be regarded as relevant information. If kids are not trained how to select among all the information that is available for them, they will not be able to make the most of this opportunity.
Obviously, parents also need to keep an eye on what kind of sites their kids visit regularly and what they use the Internet for. However, parents are not always aware of all the information that kids have access to, and are not as familiar with the pitfalls of using the Internet. In the 21st century students are required to use digital media when acquiring something new, but they need guidelines in order to accomplish it. Educators and teachers need to train them from an early age. In case of younger kids, teachers can help the students providing them with a couple of sites that they can use in their research, so they will not be mislead by false information. Later, students can be taught how to look for valid information, what to consider when seeking resources.
Without this kind of background knowledge, students cannot become digital literate and cannot learn how to use the Internet in an intelligent way.
Zsofi Goreczky
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
ReplyDeleteUndoubtedly, our reading habits change due to our lifestyle and how much our life has become faster. Obviously, searching the web while sitting on board of the bus requires different reading skills than lying in our bed with an actual book in our hands. We cannot say that one type of reading is better than the other one, or is worth more. They are different. I believe that one is needed to have various reading skills in order to make the most of the technological development and information available. To some extent it is true that there is no more need for sitting in a silent library for hours in order to be able to find some information. The ability of searching the Internet has completely changed how much time and energy we need to invest in order to find some information. Parallel to this, people’s reading habits have adjusted to this pace, and they have learned how to skim text spending the least time reading the actual text. I don’t think this reading would be worth less than sitting over a book and paying attention to only every second sentence. Even when people could not type in keywords and use smart search engines, their attention was often distracted and could not always focus on what they were reading.
Obviously, if people read only skimming the text and never going for whole comprehension, their brains can become ‘lazy’ and can forget how to concentrate on something. As teachers, we need to train the students’ different reading skills. They need to be able to search on the Internet, skim the text and understand the basic concept and content of it. They also need to read longer texts, literature as well, in order to improve their imagination and creativity.
Zsofi Goreczky
Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool
ReplyDeleteIn the 21st century students are required to acquire different skills than a couple of decades ago. Consequently, different teaching methods are necessary on the teachers’ behalf. Teachers need to consider the benefits of the various methods before choosing the most appropriate one. When it comes to lectures, they need to put up the question: ‘What do lectures give that no other methods would provide?’ In case of lectures the only resource is the teacher. The students do not contribute to acquire something new, their only task is sitting silently and taking notes. They are supposed to keep on paying attention for hours and memorize as much as they can. Their task is pretty difficult since they are expected to remember the lecture even without taking part in it actively. Even if the lecture is attention grabbing and held in a thought-provoking way, students do not benefit from it as much as they could if they could build on their existing knowledge and taking part in the learning process actively.
Obviously, it is quite challenging to manage one hundred students and organize how they acquire the material. It needs discipline and training as well. Students need to get used to this situation and also learn what they are expected to do in this special type of ‘lecture’. However, once having adjusted to it, it proves to be much more effective than the traditional lecture.
I believe that teachers need to reconsider the traditional learning methods and alter them according to the needs of the 21st century learners. They cannot turn a blind eye on what students are like and what learning experience suits them the most.
Zsofi Goreczky
In each of these three interesting readings the authors explore three distinctive aspects around the impact of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and the Internet in the processes of teaching and learning.
ReplyDeleteThe first article, “Teaching Civil War History 2.0.” deals specifically with the crucial problem of analyzing and verifying all the information students and teachers collect from the Internet. In the article Mr.Levin notes the ambiguity of Internet’s information and the serious risks of assuming the veracity of the information only because it is in the Internet.
The second article “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is doing to our brain” explores the important changes in the process of learning directly from the Internet, and how these changes are able to transform the way we think. The topic is fascinating and as states in the article is based on the fact that reading, not like speech, is not an instinctive skill for human beings, and therefore it can be transformed.
The last article, “Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool” addresses the Internet in a more indirect way, inferring that if some people could think of teaching as a method of information transfer, Internet would be the best tool for that purpose.
The common theme in all the readings could be the significance of thinking critically. By using reflective reasoning we are in better disposition of overcoming inaccuracies, controlling the
way we digest information, and use Internet as what it really is: a phenomenal repository of information.
Rafael Cazorla
Levin cites as an example a mistake a history text book author makes and I think it's extremely relevant. It shows just exactly how false information can be introduced and perpetuated as fact fairly easily by those who don't take care to consider their sources. I agree with Levin that most people don't know how to conduct an effective Internet search. In fact, even though I consider myself to know quite a bit about it, I admit that I could stand to learn more. In the schools I've worked at so far, some have had a class taught by the Librarian on how to conduct searches and verify sources, but others have not. In my American Literature course I briefly touched on it prior to a researching the Death Penalty, but even I didn't spend a whole period. The problem was, in that instance, that my students did not have access to computers and/or iPads in that classroom. In order to conduct in-class research I needed to schedule time in the computer lab, which was not always available. As noted in another article we've read for the week, it is nearly impossible to make a skill "stick" without active participation.
ReplyDeleteIn my own work as a writer I admit I rely heavily on the Internet for those quick facts and tidbits of information I need to make my stories sing, but I double check my sources as much as possible. Just the other day I was almost nailed by an article about milk spills. The article claimed that milk spills were a hazard and that the EPA needed to be called when they happen (big spills, like from a truck, which happens more often than you might think). I was going to highlight this fact in a piece I was writing, but decided to look into it more closely... Further research exposed more articles on the topic with conflicting takes and a quick phone call to the EPA revealed the truth: although milk spills used to be considered pollutants (like oil, for instance) and were subject to those laws a recent change now exempts milk spills. The first article I read was correct, but outdated, even though it was just a few years old. It's a good reminder that the Internet can't always be trusted, even when the information "looks" reliable. There isn't a quick replacement for well-conducted, clear headed research.
Katie Buono
This was my favorite article... I felt like my brain was being bent in new places as I read... So many good examples and (ironically) so well researched... I wonder if he conducted it on the web? ;-)
ReplyDeleteI sympathized with Carr and realized that my pleasure "real book" reading has also declined. The last year or so I've been blaming grad school but perhaps the sad truth is that my brain is also changing. Already I've become quite enamored with the iPad and found that I'm turning to my Flipbook, replete with short blurbs and video, before the novel I'm reading.
However, I generally think of myself as a Luddite... Although I embrace much of technology, I find myself holding onto certain old school practices, like pencils and handwritten notes... and I shudder to think that Google's end game is to interface our brains... But then I think about Socrates' reaction to the idea of writing... Where would I be without writing?! This article really gave me glimpses of a "totally wired" future, or at least got me to consider the idea.
Still, I can't stand the idea of a world without real paper books, really I can't even fathom. I am one of those people, though, who still buys and listens to vinyl records so I suppose my reaction is predictable.
Katie Buono
I read or heard somewhere recently -- although I'm sorry I don't recall where -- that the human brain can really only handle approximately twelve minutes of lecture... And I've taken this to heart when planning my lessons. Ideally, I think a mixture of telling/demonstrating /showing and doing works best, which is what it sounds like Mazur ended up doing regularly in his class. I like that this article reminds us of the importance of active learning. I would also like to point out that small group work has the added benefit of building community, which I believe is a key component of any classroom.
ReplyDeleteKatie Buono
I can’t help but disagree with Carr in, “ Is Google Making Us Stupid?” While the author suggests that the World Wide Web 2.0 has hindered his ability in “concentration and contemplation,” and transformed the manner in which he processes his thoughts. I feel as though it has done the opposite for me. I was never one to immerse myself in lengthy literature books in high school and college unless required. Now in my adult life I find myself picking up more lengthy books to subsidize the articles and fast pace reading I often catch myself doing for work or school. Since I began writing extensive research papers in high school then in undergrad and now in gradate work, I see the change that happened. Before I used to roam the library stacks in search of the right article, now I search the web.
ReplyDeleteI don’t find it surprising that individuals are taking note of how the use of the interactive web has changed how we gather, analyze, and then utilize information. What I find surprising is Carr’s belief of the apparent dangerous impact the Net will have on our use and appreciation for literacy and abilities in reference to literacy information. I would ask the author and his, “literary types” if they have a fear that the abundant availability of information puts into question their skills and gifts as “literary types.” That is to say, are society’s educated elite now fearful that the common citizen now has the ability gain the same knowledge from an internet site, which once took entire college course and/or degrees to obtain.
While I don’t agree with all the Google hype I can only admire their mission, “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” The internet is in no way going anywhere or retracting in use. In time access to a more reliable and stronger web will occur. Access to the Net, by affordable and transportable devices is already occurring. This change is not only inevitable but visible all around us.
Rather than concentrate on how the Net is altering our ability to obtain and interpret information, I would rather focus on how we support our society in correctly and appropriately obtaining information. If we could educated our youth, and general society, in digital literacy it would help to support the ability for individuals to correctly and efficiently obtain and infer information from the Net. And when they obtain this information they are will be able to utilize such skills and technologies to interact and collaborate with their personal and professional communities appropriately. Incorporate into the notion of digital literacy is the ability to form a health and positive relationship with technology. Not one of dependence and dominance, as the article suggests.
So to Carr, I would like to say no, Goggle is not making you stupid. Rather I think that Google is challenging you to think beyond your current and socially prescribed intelligences in preparation for a new wave of intelligences and skills that await us.
The third article 'Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool' impressed me because it showed me how I could use technology in order to encourage my students to learn by themselves. As an EFL teacher in Korea, I lectured every day by explaining English grammar rules, giving my students homework. Sometimes I used websites only to ease up my lessons or to give them related video clips. I actually haven't tried to make my students do something online.
ReplyDeleteAs technology has been developed and people have done many things online, I've been told that teachers are going to disappear if computer takes over their jobs.There are a lot of websites that help people to learn whatever they want. And I was threatened by that saying because English teachers might be the first victims. There are tons of websites that people can learn English, which consist of various types of learning from videoclips to thorough online lecture. Even though I designed a variey of teaching materials to interest my students, I was not able to catch up with the websites that are updated every second.
However, after reading this article, as the writer said, I might need to my role into a facilitator. Instead of explaining every grammar rule I am supposed to teach, I can encourage my students to teach their peers by looking into the grammar rules online. In the past, I thought that I always know more than my students do. But because there are a variety of information about English learning, the students might find a better way to teach. Hence, my class can be learner-centered, which is considered an ideal language class, and both my students and I can learn a lot of things from each other.
These are all great articles, but the article in The Atlantic is especially good. Relating a real life example to an example from a movie is something which I do myself all the time, and this article gets out of the starting gate by doing just that. Extra points for using one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Indeed, a cautionary tale about technology if ever there was one (albeit an easy “go-to” reference).
ReplyDeleteConveniently, quoting from a movie will directly relate to the first article, as well. From the movie Grand Canyon (1991), the screen-writing character Davis, played by Steve Martin, says: “That’s part of your problem: you haven’t seen enough movies. All of life’s riddles are answered at the movies.” This is a quote that a fictional character delivers in the movie. It was written by actual screenwriters Lawrence Kasdan and Meg Kasdan (with Lawrence Kasdan also being the director of the film). It is not a quote from Steve Martin the person, but a line delivered by the character he is playing. However, if you Google the exact quote, many pages are returned which list websites that erroneously attribute the quote to Steve Martin the person, with absolutely no mention that it is a fictional character played by Steve Martin who actually speaks the words. Sprinkled within the listings are websites which correctly indicate the movie as the source of the quote, but those sites are far fewer in number by comparison. Searching for Steve Martin in combination with text-strings that only partially resemble the actual quote will also return the same erroneous results. Admittedly, this is not a subject nearly as serious as whether African-Americans in the Civil War south were voluntarily serving the Confederacy. However, the misquoting of Steve Martin, however innocuous it may seem, is entirely as serious as misrepresenting a much more important part of history, in that history itself is, in fact, being falsely represented on a general level on the internet. (Sorry for the run-on sentence, but, sometimes, a long sentence is a good thing!)
After reading Kevin Levin’s “Teaching Civil war History 2.0,” I was only reaffirmed of the need for youth, and society at large, to have the proper and adequate skills to navigate the digital world. I believe that the notion of digital literacy is essential for students of the 21st century, to successfully navigate the information they are handed through the web. As the author notes, there has clearly been a lack of attention given by educational systems (who can really blame them) “to instructing students to properly use search engines and evaluate digital sources.”
ReplyDeleteIn the past the clearing house for printed materials fell on the hands of publishers and literature reviews (though this article clearly showcases its inadequate reviews). In the new digital age of a Web 2.0, there exists no such safety net to ensure the validity of ones work. What we have now is a source of media that allows for anyone and everyone to create and publish work that is available to an audience that seems incomprehensible (the entire world population access to internet connection).
As the author notes, “the ease with which we can access and contribute to the Web makes it possible for everyone to be his or her own historian.” Indeed it is a blessing for those voices that are often ignored or unheard from. Yet as the situation in Virginia showcases, it can have a damaging impact when not utilized with accurate or well researched information. I agree with the suggestion that educators should, “take responsibility to incorporate online research techniques into their syllabuses,” especially for older students who interact with the web on a daily basis. Yet this is only a small portion of the solution. In our educational system, the skills to critically examine sources, thoughtfully construct meaning, and effectively utilize such materials must be explicitly taught and cultivated.
Continuing:
ReplyDeleteRegarding the important relationship of technology to commerce, the oldest writing examples in the world (not cave art, but true writing) are cuneiform tablets, and which are lists of business transactions! The oldest writing in the world is not poetry, or descriptions of religious rites, or listing someone’s important ancestral lineage, but bills of sale and receipts for goods. The gods were described by pictures that encircled cylinder seals, but words were for really important things like keeping track of your gold! Poetry, religion, and descriptions of life had to wait for different technological developments: papyrus and parchment. I was thinking of this when reading that remarkable anecdote about Nietzsche switching to a type-writer, and how his thinking changed from “...arguments to aphorisms, from thoughts to puns.” That’s incredible!
I can see a similar transitional process happening in my students right now. I’m very good at sculpting in clay or other mediums, and have recently taught a class entitled Sculpting For Animation. Materials used were wire, wood, and various clays. Clipping the wire length can produce ends on the wire that are sharp, and, as happens when using wire, you sometimes poke your fingers and bleed. Wire doesn’t bend right, or it bends too much and breaks, or you’ve spent two precious hours making your wire form and suddenly realize that it is too small! Or too big! Or something else is wrong with it, and you must start over from scratch. There is no “undo” button! As an artist, you committed to a path, and it may have gone wrong. You made a mistake, and your valuable time seems wasted. But it is NOT wasted. You will definitely never make that mistake again, whatever it may have been. You have learned by hard-earned experience, and as a result you value your future time based upon that knowledge.
In the digital realm, one subject which I teach is sculpting using various software programs. You sculpt with a mouse or a stylus, and your work is forever beyond your actual touch, up there within the infinite void of the computer monitor. You never poke your fingers with wire and bleed (although you may easily develop carpal-tunnel syndrome and never lift your hands again). As an artist, you commit easily to the “un-do” button on a steady, regular basis. Rarely do you commit to a focused vision involving a mental image of your goal, in competition only with yourself and with your last artwork. As an artist, you jump over to the Internet, and study what the “community of users” are doing, and you try to out-do them, not yourself. You hit hot-keys to change the parameters of the virtual brush which you are using to push wireframe geometry on the screen. The resistance of the material offers no delicate feedback to your finger muscles, only the slick sliding motion of the nylon tip of the pen-stylus against the vinyl-like surface of the tablet. These sculpting methods are not just two entirely different ways thinking, but of actually “experiencing” sculpting. In my view, digital sculpting is not actually sculpting. At best, it is deformation. It is manipulating a wireframe representation, but is not actually linked to the mental processes involved in aesthetic choice, or, importantly, commitment to a goal. That “un-do” button spoils everything! You can never learn from your mistakes, because you can never actually make any mistakes.
ReplyDeleteConveniently, this brings to mind another quote from a movie. “What you take into your hand, you take into your heart.” In the movie Witness, this was delivered to a young Amish boy as a cautionary (!) example about what a handgun is used for, that is to say, it’s only reason for existing is to kill people. If you take it into your hand, you take the idea of killing people into your heart. This may be rather oblique to sculpting, but it rings true for me. What you actually take into your hand, you take into your heart. What you can never take into your hand, what you can never touch up on the computer screen, you can never really experience.
Briefly, also in the second article, the comments by Sergey Brin from the 2004 Newsweek article about directly attaching all of the world’s information directly to your brain cannot be separated from the overall views of Kurzweil’s “singularity.” This seems to me to be a direct philosophical link between them.
ReplyDelete“Teaching Civil War History 2.0” and “Is the Google Making Us Stupid” bring up an important issue which is how we evaluate the given information on the internet. Being on the top of the Google search page is not the most accurate information. Reading the highlights and subtracts of the search results does not give the entire picture of the information you are seeking. It’s a big challenge not only for students but also for teachers. While reading through “Is the Google Making Us Stupid?”, I could not help having a tendency to skim through the article. It appears that deep reading does not happen while reading on a computer rather than on an actual book or a reading device.
ReplyDeleteWith so much information out there and so little time to go through it, how can we determine what is good or bad?
I absolutely agree with Eric Mazur’s teaching technique. A good lecture should not repeat the information which students can read or find on their own. It rather should involve deep understanding of the knowledge through discussion among students and teachers. Seeing the same knowledge from different angles and perspective is more powerful than just seeing from a teacher’s point of view. It’s big challenge for teacher to know how to create a foundation for the instructional scaffolding to happen. Teacher is no longer the only voice in the classroom, but is a guide to direct the class discussion.
Blog addendum: This section of my blog commentary went missing. Please read this after my 6:50pm post. A second addendum follows this one. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAs a particularly ironic example, where they even screw-up the quotation marks, from the website Goodreads: “You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen enough movies - all of life's riddles are answered in the movies." Steve Martin”
Here are two relevant online listings about Grand Canyon from the Internet Movie Database (IMDB):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101969/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_1
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0019879/quotes
Teaching Civil War History. I thought that the article was scary in that it seems society takes everything as fact on the Internet. Why is that? Are we in such a hurry that historical validity goes unchecked and becomes fact in a school history book. The Internet has made our lives much easier but in many ways have dulled our innate ability to ask where did a fact originate from. A funny Allstate commercial comes to mind where a man and a woman are discussing the validity of information on the Internet. The woman is of the opinion that everything on the Internet is true because she read it on the Internet. Then another man comes into the picture and she tells the first man here comes her date who she met on the Internet, he claims to be a French model but is obviously not when he says " Bon Jour" in an American accent. The woman walks off arm and arm with him. My point being is that as a society we can not take anything for face value especially if it comes from the Internet.
ReplyDeleteIs Google Making Us Stupid. My wife and I was researching online about an illness one of our children had. I was reading the text and soon realized that the screen was being scrolled down by my wife. I know I am not the fastest reader however I could not understand why I was not able in keeping up with my wife. I asked her if was reading absolutely everything and she told me only information that jumped out. If I do not read everything I understand little. It amazes me how people are able to truly comprehend information at a high rate of speed. Can one truly ponder the validity of what is being processed. There was a time that we could remember multiple phone numbers off the tops of our heads. If the majority were to loose our smart phones that are run by Google we would shut down. People would be at a total loss because of the dependency society has developed on Google.
ReplyDeletePhysicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool. I Mazur's approach to lecturing. Let the students teach one another in small groups. Let them discuss what the have read and how it is that they comprehend it. This approach gets everyone involved. I often wonder while I am lecturing how much of what I am saying is being retained or whether or not I'm boring. I can see why educators are threatened by this approach because they themselves do not want to be phased out of the classroom. I like the term " sideline judge " when referring to the instructor.
ReplyDeleteBoth of the Google article and the civil war reminds me of some experiences I've had. When I took Methodology of Educational Research last year, the big drawback of search engine was that not all of the information is credible. So, I learned that we should use the information that are from authorized webpages and proved by experts. As the writer mentioned, however, students have not learn much about how to use online correctly. When working at a public school in Korea, I saw many history teachers giving students assignments that the students should use the Internet. For instance, the students had to look into the lives of the Kings in Korean history online and print out what they had found. When they brought their homework, I had a chance to look at their homework, but most of them were duplicated and included wrong information about the Kings. I asked them where they had found the information and they said they 'navered' them- 'Naver' is a most used search engine like Google. Regardless of the quality of the information, most of the students clicked the first webpage shown and printed it out. As watching them, I thought that that is why some young people have wrong knowledge about Korean history.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that Google is making us stupid. On the one hand, it might be true that Google prevents us from concentrating in reading a long writing. It is true that we are accustomed to skimming the information and do not read a whole long text any more. On the other hand, we can get various types of information online much more quickly than through books. Therefore, I think whether Google is beneficial or not depends on how properly we use it.
At public schools in Korea, there is a computer lesson in the curriculum. What students learn in the class is how to get an access to the Internet or use essential softwares to do homework. However, nowadays most of the students already know how to deal with the computer. So, the lesson should focus more on how to search information online in a correct way. Then, the students might be ready for doing their homework with search engine.
Is the Google Making Us Stupid?
ReplyDeleteI am already familiar with this article, particularly Carr’s concept of information “surfing” or “skimming.” From a personal perspective, I absolutely get his point. I’m a self-proclaimed information junkie and I notice that my habit is affecting my long-term concentration and attention span. When I read an article online, I often skim past the intro paragraph to get to the core content, statistics, etc. When I watch an informational video online, I skip past the ads and the intro, clicking on the video’s timeline until I get to the useful information. I absolutely notice that these habits carry over to book reading, where I can have difficulty slowing down and reading at a normal pace. I get back in the flow eventually, but I have to calm my mind and retrain my brain to read in a linear fashion!
However, Carr’s comments about the negative effects of the “power browse” leave me unconvinced that this phenomenon is necessarily a bad thing. How does he know that power browsing does not allow for “rich mental connections”? Perhaps it actually does allow for such connections, but they happen on a different, faster scale and at a higher magnitude? In any case, this phenomenon is not going away – if anything, it will increase over time -- so do we stubbornly stick to the old model, or embrace the new and find a way to make it work? Can instructional design emphasize the importance of making “rich mental connections” through power browsing somehow? I think it will have to, but I’m not sure what the answer is.
On another topic, I was struck by Google’s goal to create “the perfect search engine,” which it defines as something that “understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want.” It occurs to me that an essential aspect of teaching digital literacy is to help students think critically so that they know exactly what they mean, and communicate well so that they can express that meaning; that these skills will be necessary to get back exactly what they want.
I was also struck by the Google leaders’ notion that “the more pieces of information we can ‘access’ and the faster we can extract their gist, the more productive we become as thinkers.” If this is true, one might expect that our students would be performing better, our citizens would be better informed, democracy would be more functional, the economy would be booming, etc. Why is this not the case? The Internet has revolutionized entertainment, communication, social networking. Why not learning and education? I think that we need educators – particularly in academia – to make a case for how we can apply Google’s vision to education.
"Google" continued...
ReplyDeleteThis critique of Carr’s is also interesting: “Still, their easy assumption that we’d all ‘be better off’ if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence is unsettling. It suggests a belief that intelligence is the output of a mechanical process, a series of discrete steps that can be isolated, measured, and optimized.” I think the author takes Google’s philosophy to an extreme that Google’s founders don’t intend, but he does make a point. Perhaps analytic or scientific intelligence would be served by a mechanical process, but the same isn’t true for emotional intelligence or artistic intelligence. The practice of feeling empathy or creating an artistic expression is far from “mechanical.”
Carr’s concluding statement, “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence,” is overly pessimistic in my opinion. How do we face this challenge in our classroom? I would recommend some of the old standbys: assign reading. Go on field trips. Work in a science lab. Walk in nature. Go abroad. Discuss things verbally, in discussion groups. Present students with problems that need to be solved, and that can’t be solved by Googling for the answer. Encourage critical thinking. Discuss digital media literacy topics, and educate students about authentic information sources.
Teaching Civil War History 2.0
ReplyDeleteThis article boils down to a topic that we discussed repeatedly in DML courses last semester: the need for teaching digital media literacy. Students will suffer without the ability to determine the credibility of online information sources. Biases run rampant in blogs, op-ed pieces, and news articles about science, history, and a host of other subjects. The issue surrounding the “Black Confederate narrative” that author Kevin M. Levin opines on is also part of a larger, endemic problem in a portion of the country that ignores history and science.
Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool
ReplyDeleteThis covers the “flipped” model where students watch or read the lecture information before coming to class. We covered this rather extensively in last semester’s DML courses. I’m already persuaded of the efficacy of this approach. As an educator, I have lectured on the topic of video production off and on and on for almost 10 years. I’m noticing that students are less engaged now. The moment I tell them to work in groups of two or three and find information on their own (instead of hearing it come from me), they are much more engaged.
So…I want to create blended classes, flip the classroom, and lose the rows of desks in our media labs. I want to provide iPads. I want to put the student workstations in pods of three students each. The hurdle is the cost. I haven’t yet convinced the executives that this reform is important enough to justify the costs.
I'm not a teacher yet, but I have always been fascinated with education and the process of learning. Last semester I was introduced to the common core which is the new standard for education in the United States of America. One of the ideas with the common core is that students shouldn't spend all of their time memorizing facts they can just look up. The focus is to get the students to the next level where higher level thinking can occur. The readings were very interesting. They spoke on the new way of teaching and the ideas of easy access to information.
ReplyDeleteWith the common core, standard teachers all over are struggling to design a classroom that can take the students to the higher level of thinking. Eric Mazur has some great ideas on how he is teaching his class. When you actively engage the students in a discovery learning process, you not only keep them interested (engaged), but you move their brains from memorizing facts to creative, higher level thinking.
Google is a wonderful way of getting information. You need to be well educated on how you decide what is valid. I am currently teaching my children how to get good reliable information from Google. Most everything you find on the web is an opinion, so I have been showing them how to check sources and credentials. They hate the process but it is helping their research abilities. The idea that Google is trying to make a super search engine that has some sort of intelligence is fascinating. Imagine if you could ask Google a question and it would ask you the right questions so it could give you the very best information (AKA credible sources ) from the very beginning. That would be time saving and a WOW factor.
Marc Robertson