had been posted by George Siemens here (TB). In his post „Does technology connect or disconnect us from others?“ are a lot of questions mentioned worth to think about for many of people engaged in preaching the use of technology. Three things kept me thinking.
We search Google and think we have acquired knowledge. We blog and think we have subjected our ideas to peer review. Or, we publish an article on our website and think that qualifies as a publication. I partially understand the negatives being expressed by these authors. Times of transition are unsettling.
Yes the times are unsetteling. And it reminds me on a lot of discussion I had with lecturers and colleques claiming the sadly changed quality of students work. (Just bringing up the C&P phenomena). But in fact there are many discussions going into one thread. And often enough there is only the simple soultion in mind. And those solutions sound like „We will have to ban Wikiedia“ – to noun one for all the other tools etc. Just staying in the observational position – why not thinking about helping the students to get in the real touch with this possibilities? And this means f.I. – use by reading, value for knowledge and finally decide your position. Using the information delivered AND the discussion about as one point you may start with and then go deeper aiming to aprove. Develop an own strategy to get more enriching informations by using search engines and libraries. In fact – they are doing a lot of steps scientist did also in past – but with a more of information. And this points to the value of information nowerdays. Are we ready to recognize that the truth of knowledge in the sense of verification is really speedy changing? It has been changing all the times before. But we have to consider that with the speed of information distribution opposite opinions or controverses gaining up also. What a change for the need to learn that knowledge is only in value from the moment told in the context told – and this is what matters also later on, when goig to understand all the traditional roots.
Update – because this didn’t let me go last night: Here in Germany the last weeks – a magazine titeled: „Computer -making you stupid!“ Thinking about what angers me in this sentence marked with an explanation mark? Because it is irrational. Without reading the paper itself – this cannot be true. Why? Really because, if i have a ordinator – and i don’t use – would it make me stupid by his still presence? Finally to get the point. It isn’t the technoogy itself which should be in the view of the critical minds. It is the use of technology. And If an argue goes in direction of misuse – there could also be a real and valuable use. And going to this level there is a potenital to bring students to their benefit to use. And maybe by enriching them in alternate actions in their use. Valued use can be learned and offered. And maybe in the discourse of the critical voices and sciences – this little difference could decover a lot of serious questions.
Additional if you stay at the „use-tech“ point: There are two actors who can be able to learn by this way. Content producers – can also learn to guide the potential reader about how the information should be used or not. Many Bloggers claim their blog as a think-tank or mind in progress. This maybe useful for readers too.
Before I close my 2 cents just a remark to the citated report: I just wonder, why there is not recognized the difference in quality between the connections using different tools? How could they been seen in the networking metaphor? I think this could also enrich this discussion.
Bis denne Andreas
