This past summer, I took a grad course that explored art and architecture through technology. In all honesty, it was one of the best courses that I have ever taken. One of the selected readings was "Information Anxiety In the Internet Age" by an American architect and graphic designer named Richard Saul Wurman. One quote from Wurman really stood out to me. He writes:
We are like a thirsty person who has been condemned to use a thimble to drink from a fire hydrant. The sheer volume of available information and the manner in which it is often delivered render much of it useless to us.”
What a great picture that paints with a connection to the digital world. It seems that there is always so much information out there for us to access that demand just cannot ever exceed supply. Even though information requests are constant and we can agree that users are using more and more of the information, the digital landscape is growing at such an exponential level it is unreal. Also keep in mind that much of the information is bogus and unreliable, but it is there just the same.
Think the on-demand classroom that can go to youtube and view Obama's acceptance speech from the DNC just as easily as it can watch a schoolhouse rock video without looking for the tape or DVD. Think of the conferencing classroom that can Skype! with any connected classroom at any corner of the globe. Think of the movie star classroom that can create movies of their own and publish them for the world to see.
The Internet has brought the world to us, and us to the world.
Now let's consider the other side. All of this information has to go somewhere for us to use it. For grad school, I have been asked to dig deeper on some Web2.0 tools. I blog, my kids blog, we have a wiki, we have avatars, we have made movies, we have communicated through Skype! - although in a few days I will have a brand new class and have to start from scratch again!
If you are anything like me, you have more than one email address. I have 3 that I use often, 1 that I use sometimes and 1 that I rarely use. I have my blog, my class blog, blogs of educators that I respect and admire, my class wiki, my youtube and teachertube accounts, my rss feeds, my google docs, my Internet forums for various groups, not to mention the vast craziness that to me is the unorganized Internet.
I started to check through my list of Web2.0 sites and resources, and I found a few cool ones that I never knew about. One is EasyBib. I like it because it helps students to create bibliography entries, but they must input all of the information. So while they think that it is doing the work for them (as in formatting), they are still finding and noting the information. I found countless other tools. Some were good and some were not. Some were more appropriate for middle, high school and even college students. Some were questionable, while some looked to be trustworthy. Now I spent about 20 minutes looking at stuff, and no doubt I have only seen the tip of the proverbial iceberg, so I can only imagine the time I would have to invest to see 'a lot of it'. Add to the that the dynamic nature of the Internet, and the idea is very overwhelming!
Now if it is overwhelming to me (and I consider myself to be tech-savvy) how will an elementary school student feel? How will a high school student feel? It's like a funnel with a 500 mile input opening reducing to a 1 inch output. TMI!
I'd love to hear what the blogopshere thinks! Please feel free to comment!
Have a happy and safe Memorial Day holiday! 2 more days.. ugh..
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