Information Evaluation Rises Thanks to Social Media & Web 2.0
This week’s question asks us to think about how education has changed, as well as some of the advantages and challenges of learning in a social media/web 2.0 world. What's the most obvious change? Wikipedia and Google Scholar.
Wikipedia taught us that all information is not created equal. Maehre (2014) argues that Wikipedia is not only a good thing, but can be useful in teaching information evaluation. We can all agree that there are great Wikipedia articles and there are trash Wikipedia articles. The great ones have references that are almost as long as the article, hyperlinks that aren't broken, headings and subheadings to get lost in. The trash ones are plagued with this:
A great Wikipedia article lights a spark, makes you want to read more, makes you feel as though you've learned something. A trash Wikipedia article will make you question your educational choices. Maehre (2014) sees this as good. For him, learning is a process, a journey, with no particular end in sight. You should always be engaged in thinking critically about the information that you come into contact with, and using Wikipedia, in conjunction with other educational techniques, can teach you how to do that (Maehre, 2014). The background or authority of the author takes a backseat to the quality of information presented.
Google Scholar is something that I've only just discovered in graduate school. Google is fast becoming a one-stop shop. It's a verb, for Pete's sake! Access to scholarly articles without having to be connected to an academic institution. Who would have thought that was possible 15 years ago? It is here that a student may come when searching for that magical combination of keywords and phrases combination that will net us a good 5 or so pages of results that we can sift through. We do this, because we want general information.
It has always been my understanding that a good research project moves from the general to the specific. Starting with internet searches, whether through Google or Wikipedia, is a tried and true technique of graduate students, indeed of undergrad students as well (Liyana & Noorhidawati, 2014). From the internet search for general information, we begin to form our thesis; we begin to frame our research. Then we move on to library research, online or physical.
The advent of web 2.0 and social media, I think, has forced us to become more discriminating in information sources. We know, now, that we can't trust everything someone tells us and/or that we read on the internet. We know, now, that some news outlets report without gathering all of the facts in an attempt to be first. Ever heard the phrase, "It's not true until it's on the BBC"? From all accounts, the BBC doesn't worry about being first. They worry about being right. I could be wrong here, but that's my impression. Web 2.0 has brought the hows of information evaluation to the forefront of the conversation. Rather than saying "don't use bad sources" or "beware of biased authors", web 2.0 and social media has made it possible to gain multiple perspectives, so that we may determine what a bad source is, what it is about the information that makes it unsuitable.
Liyana, S. & Noorhidawata, A. (2014). How graduate students seek for information: Convenience or guaranteed result. Malaysian Journal of Librar & Information Science, 19(2), 1-15.
Maehre, J. (2014). What it means to ban Wikipedia: An exploration of the pedagogical principles at stake. College Teaching, 57(4), 229-236.
