28b3 Jabberwiki: The Educational Response, Part I -Britannica Blog

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The ready availability of digital resources on the Internet and the Web to the middle class and wealthy of the Western world has had a major impact on all aspects of 21st-century life—commercial, political, medical, legal, societal, and educational.  This ready availability came upon us very quickly—the first Web site in North America appeared in 1991—and the adjustment to such a major change has been, at best, uneven.  For example, in the political sphere, the impact of the digital revolution on the general election of 2004 was immensely greater than its impact in 2000 and will, in turn, be dwarfed by the impact on the 2008 election.  Politicians and political operatives have come up with a range of responses characterized by creativity and existential panic, often simultaneously. 

All the central institutions of Western society have responded in a similarly reactive and alarmed manner.  Many of these institutions are driven by the middle aged and old acting in a domain that is widely perceived to be the province of the young.  This discontinuity is not helped by reliance on a series of urban myths about the supposed uniqueness of the young generation based on the idea that its members have no useful memory of the pre-Web life.  Let us leave aside the fact that the “uniqueness of the young” has been proclaimed every 15 years or so for almost the past century—from the energetic flappers of the 1920s to the lethargic slackers of the 1990s. 

Our schools, colleges, and universities are not least among those institutions being tossed around in the rough digital seas.  The teachers, professors, and administrators of our educational institutions are products of the print age—people of learning whose values arise from and are conditioned by the study of authoritative and authentic texts in libraries, by classroom learning and other face-to-face interactions with teachers, and by research within the then generally accepted and enforced canons of academic integrity.  There is a widespread perception that a sea change is occurring or in prospect for each of these activities. 

The Web presents today’s students with a wide range of texts of doubtful or unestablishable authenticity; texts that cannot be retrieved by the reliable structures employed by libraries and, despite that, are perceived to be more easily accessible than authentic texts.  Two developments—distant and Web-based/Web-enhanced learning and the supplanting of a teaching culture by a “culture of learning” (in which teachers and students “learn together” in an academic faux democracy)—threaten the traditional interaction of teacher and student and, indeed, the very authority of credentialed teachers.  Too many students today have only a vague idea of what research is (believing it to be hit and miss consultations of the Google grab-bag) and have no concepts of the values of research, partly because of the epidemic of plagiarism and other academic dishonesty made possible by (but not caused by) the advent of the Internet and the Web.  These are grave challenges to academia—challenges that cannot be met by the prevailing and embarrassing spectacle of teachers and administrators trying to conform to their perceptions of today’s youth (perceptions that are, if history is any guide, wildly wide of the mark).

The fact is that today’s young, as do the young in every age, need to learn from those who are older and wiser; they need to acquire good habits of study and research; and they need to be exposed to and learn to experience the richness of the human record.  Pretending that the Internet and the Web have abolished those eternal verities is both intellectually dishonest and a proposal for cultural suicide.  The academy must replace the present posturing and trendiness with a serious and wide-ranging discussion of how it can accommodate positive aspects of the digital revolution in its structures and policies without abandoning its belief in the importance of teaching, the value of true research, and the value of lifelong interaction with complex texts (true literacy)—the tripartite elements of education that have led to so much societal progress in the past.  Each of the elements of education is characterized by an insistence on authenticity and high standards.  Teachers must have credentials as authorities and prove them continuously.  True research is dependent on adherence to high standards of probity and scholarly rigor.  The texts from which students learn must be primary sources or the product of people of authority in their fields.

Tomorrow: Part II

20c4



17 Responses to “Jabberwiki: The Educational Response, Part I”

  1. Pajamas Media Says:

    At War With Wikis:

    Dan Drezner finds grumbling over the digital revolution on the new Encyclopedia Britannica blog….

  2. Kathryn Greenhill Says:

    If the next generation is so bad at research and unable to discriminate…which generation taught and enabled this, using which tools?

    Was it “The teachers, professors, and administrators of our educational institutions [who] are products of the print age—people of learning whose values arise from and are conditioned by the study of authoritative and authentic texts in libraries, by classroom learning and other face-to-face interactions with teachers, and by research within the then generally accepted and enforced canons of academic integrity.”

  3. re: web 2.0: the sleep of reason « Ghostfooting Says:

    […] UPDATE: In the continuing story of Michael Gorman, Web 2.0 critic, dancing his ideas into the glittering blogosphere, I must say that I do most heartily agree (also!) with this passage: The fact is that today’s young, as do the young in every age, need to learn from those who are older and wiser; they need to acquire good habits of study and research; and they need to be exposed to and learn to experience the richness of the human record.  Pretending that the Internet and the Web have abolished those eternal verities is both intellectually dishonest and a proposal for cultural suicide. […]

  4. WoodyE Says:

  5. Tomas E. Says:

    Gorman’s message is sound, though it’s doubtless not what the majority of students and their digital leaders want to hear. Gorman is not arguing for turning back the clock, but rather saying that we must try to glean the best of the past for the best of the present and the promise of tomorrow.

    The best way to do this is to cultivate a symbiotic relationship between both camps: the traditionalist teacher schooled in sound research can learn an openness toward the new technology while students must be willing to learn from their elders, not out of knee-jerk deference but out of respect for the skills they’ve mastered the hard way and the principles they’re grounded on, earned and learned by the sweat of their brow.

    Both sides should be learning something important from this dialogue and debate at Britannica.

    250d
  6. Derek Nalecki Says:

    “The Web presents today’s students with a wide range of texts of doubtful or unestablishable authenticity; texts that cannot be retrieved by the reliable structures employed by libraries …” and just how, pray tell, do the libraries establish this alleged reliability and authenticity of texts within their walls?

    For every book in a library that has been rigorously checked for facts and objectivity, I can point out 5-10 that are full of propaganda, bias and outright lies.

    “Google grab bag” at least offers me a plethora of sources within easy reach, which I can cross-check and compare in an attempt to arrive at authenticity and reliability.

  7. Dan Miller Says:

    Mr. Gorman: This is the Internet; assuming they exist, you can easily link to examples and research demonstrating your claims. For example, you might link to someone who is actually “[p]retending that the Internet and the Web have abolished those eternal verities”. Your argument will be much more well-received if you don’t address it to unnamed malefactors.

    A helpful primer on links can be found here.

  8. Steve Says:

    I agree with Derek. Libraries are full of controversial and dubious material - as they should be. When I was a yoiung kid, I always used to think that if I read something in a book it had to be true. I would use quotes from random books in my arguments with my Mom. She never did convince me that I was wrong about the authority of print, but I eventually figured it out on my own.

    No text, in any medium, in inherently authoritative. Scholars and citizens must be responsibile for figuring out their own criteria for when they will grant a particular text authority - whether printed or digital.

    -Steve

  9. eliot bates Says:

    I also agree with Derek - There’s been really bad writing for a long time, and wikipedia and other internet sources just makes more of it more accessible. But it makes the good work more accessible as well. Just like libraries don’t immediately present a system for appraising the merit of works in their collection, wikipedia, encyclopedias, and other knowledge collections are indiscriminate. Wikipedia is no less discriminate than any encyclopedia, and we’ll find through time that certain kinds of articles are better created through a collaborative authorship system and others, perhaps, are better single-authored with an editorial advisory board.

    You wrote:
    “Too many students today have only a vague idea of what research is (believing it to be hit and miss consultations of the Google grab-bag) and have no concepts of the values of research, partly because of the epidemic of plagiarism and other academic dishonesty made possible by (but not caused by) the advent of the Internet and the Web.”

    (I’ll reply to this from the subject position of a PhD candidate at Berkeley who has taught and assisted teaching for several classes at 3 universities.) I would agree that today’s students often don’t conduct good research. This is very different from them not knowing what research is. It is also a far cry from establishing why they conduct poor research. I don’t think the Internet AT ALL causes poor research skills. Search “conducting academic research” in google, and in the top 10 results you will find articles which have at least some merit which teach someone basic principles and ethical considerations around academic research. I do think that certain kinds of educational expectations (course requirements, such as fact-based tests or abstract essay composition) and teaching competences and styles have a lot to do with how students end up conducting research. I think that factory classes - 800+ students in an auditorium watching their teacher on video screens, trying to scribble down power point slides, wondering if it will be on the midterm - have had a profoundly detrimental effect on learning, and “research” which comes out of those environments features the expected degree of plagiarism, quotations direct from top-10 google search results, etc. But I’ve seen really good work come from some of the same students when in a different course environment.

    Another point:

    “The texts from which students learn must be primary sources or the product of people of authority in their fields.”

    This idea would seem to be good in concept. However, in the case of emerging fields (for example, “popular music studies”) there may not be an established authority nor agreed-upon primary sources. For my MA thesis, which I wrote in 1996, I wrote about virtual communities of fans around a style of music that was very new. Not only was there no authority on the style of music (which hadn’t even made a splash in academia yet), but there was no established work on analyzing virtual communities, the concept of which was just beginning to form. For this, and many other interesting and productive new research projects novel research methods must be developed. If the novel method is successful, it may become an established model itself. If not, it probably won’t. But to say that the texts students must learn from must be from people of authority in the field is to place too much faith that people in the field have done adequate work. It is also dangerously close to a less productive kind of academic conservatism which maintains unproductive hierarchies of established authorities at the expense of innovation within the field.

    I want to point out the precariousness of this line of reasoning, while simultaneously agreeing that it is useful for students to read quality works and to focus on them as the basis of their own research, when such works are available. However, how to provide that list of works has eluded librarians, academics, and web 2.0 technology types alike.

  10. Bob Watson Says:

    I suggest the issue here is quite old (I suspect one might point to Goethe as the “last universal scholar”) and is inherent in the economics of Industrial Age modernity … and thus something which may be revisited if today is indeed a “post industrial” world.

    Libraries in the mid-19th century could no longer “keep up” with the spread of 1) high-speed printing, 2) newly universal literacy, 3) the rise of specialized scientific literature, and 4) the so-called “German model” university … the latter required enormous libraries in order that graduate students perform scholarly research.

    The resulting collection growth led to two responses. One was to train prospective librarians in “encyclopedia” (an introduction to darn near everything so they could understand what they were trying to add to the collection). The other (Melvil Dewey’s second try at establishing a graduate school … this time in what he considered “library economy”) was in the use of a standardized technique with a standardized tool. The demand for cheap (read: female) catalogers to work in the technical services departments of large libraries made Dewey’s school a success.

    In brief, library professionals would no longer concern themselves with “books and their content” but rather with “books as containers of content.” This POV, IMO, solidified 30-40 years after the graduates of Columbia University’s program (1884) were accepted into the professional ranks.

    This is to say that librarians have not been “aware of the whole” of knowledge for generations … they (we) are merely specialists in one form of information delivery. Rather like database coders, really.

    I think one can argue against Wikipedia as a flawed (i.e. unvetted) approach for the distribution of information … but this also applies to librarianship given that “the validity” or “truth” of what we place on our shelves is mostly irrelevent to why it is placed there. We certainly do not plaster books with the “BOGUS” stickers so many of them richly deserve.

    I suggest that we need to re-examine what “librarianship” is about. But that’s for another rant.

    1f51
  11. “Jabberwiki” « into the light Says:

    […] Jabberwiki - Part 1  […]

  12. Megan Says:

    I think you are saying that the internet is bad, and if it is so bad then why are you on britannica? You are a hipocrite to the tenth degree. I hope you can open your closed mind as soon as possible.Thanks.

  13. Megan Says:

    Please do not “dis” wikipedia. I am a member on wikipedia and i think that if you are going to say this load of bull crap you need to get a little wake up call. There are countless Administrators on the prowl looking for stupid edits and contrary to popular belief, not anyone can edit it and it will be the same. Admin, delete the crap and funny stuff kids write and put in the old things. Plus, all articles have to be approved. I have seen some pornographic pictures on the site while looking for a diagram of the reproductive system for my sex ed class, but it is not censored in terms of pictures. The site doesn’t say its kid friendly. and maybe its not but you have NO RIGHT to diss something that people have put countless hours of work into. I didn’t agree or enjoy your article at all.

  14. Jackson Says:

    I agree

  15. Mildenglish.Com » Comment on Jabberwiki: The Educational Response, Part I by Jackson Says:

    […] Monte G wrote an interesting post today on Comment on Jabberwiki: The Educational Response, Part I by JacksonHere’s a quick excerpt […]

  16. Fake College Degree Says:

    Tell me about the impact of Internet. I’m 49 and using it like a maniac. My kids can’t remember how a real book looks like unless they see a picture on the net.

  17. Wiki vs. “The Experts” « Sarah’s Weblog Says:

    […] 4, 2008 Wiki vs. “The Experts” Posted by roofsr under Uncategorized   In the ongoing debate concerning which information is“valid” information, Michael Gorman points to the flaws and uncertainties surrounding sites like Wikipedia and insists that we must continue to look to authorities and experts in their fields when we are researching. While he makes some valid points, I completely agree with Meredith Farkas’ response- especially this statement: I agree with Gorman that the crowd isn’t always right, but neither is the expert. And sometimes the crowd does know more, as you can easily see when it comes to sharing knowledge in reference wikis and conference wikis. There is a lot of great knowledge being shared on the Web. And there is a lot of garbage. A lot of untruths. We need to teach people how to discern the difference, not to pretend that one form of knowledge sharing is definitively right and one is definitively wrong. […]

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