What does Wikipedia say about Wikipedia?
“Anyone with internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles.”
“Visitors do not need specialized qualifications to contribute.”
“… anyone can contribute”
“…older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while newer articles more frequently contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism.”
These quotes, from Wikipedia, itself does not paint it in a positive light. In fact it has an opposite effect with me, especially because I am an educator. After reading this I wenton line looking for any thing that connected education to Wikipedia and found the following article: http://educationalissues.suite101.com/article.cfm/wikipedias_impact_on_education
The article wrote: “The reality is that Wikipedia has been accessed heavily by Internet users. Out of 100 prominent K – 12 education terms in U.S. and world history, these terms came up first 87 times and second 12 times. This indicates that students and others are accessing this information on a regular basis, because they are very popular (Michael Petrilli, Hoover Institution of Stanford University)”.
As a teacher I explain to them the dangers of the inaccuracy of the information and explain that is a good jumping off point. I go on to tell them to find information and challenge what they think might be incorrect information or prove what is in Wikipedia is correct, and this way they will double and triple their resources in a way to prove or disprove Wikipedia. The article continues to explain the quality of the writing from the writer’s point of view. “Mainstream terms such as the American Civil War are not prone to many errors; however, the information may be biased one way on the other based on the views of the person entering the information. The important point to remember about Wikipedia entries are that they are not necessarily posted by scholars or unbiased sources.” This suggests a whole different problem with Wikipedia, one that an untrained eye may not pick up on. Whether you are from the North or from the South your entry, on the Civil War, could be biased or heavily in favor of whichever side you consider to have had better reasons for entering the war. The students too often take the information, not as opinion based in fact, but fact or even truth. This becomes an issue when writing thesis driven writing and can often change the view point of the student to construct a completely varying paper topic. Students need to learn proper research skills and i feel that Google and Wikipedia grnat students access to ideas. Ideas that need to be researched, doubted and substantiated through a rigorous process of fact checking. it is the breakdown of the fact checking that leads students off course when really getting to the heart of the topic.
I feel that Wikipedia gives a false sense of security. Let me go further: I would not want a med-student to perform brain surgery on me after taking a test on the medula oblongata, the same way I way I would not want my sole source of information, on any topic, to come from the ramblings, as well informed as they might seem, of Wikipedia. I do plce these two ideas in the same arena and I am sticking to it.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Publishing Power for All
Heed this warning: Beware all those that cannot read, write or publish if ye cannot publish ye shall perish to the whims and critiques of your peers.
The movie “The Incredibles” puts it best when a conversation between a son and mother poses this idea:
Helen Parr: Everyone is special, Dash.
Dash Parr: Which is another way of saying no one is.
If everyone can publish than does that make everyone publish worthy? This seems to be the debate that Denis Pelli and Charles Bigelow are engaged in. They surmise that with the influx of recent social media (facebook, blogs, Twitter) it seems that today, “at 0.1 percent authorship, many people are trading privacy for influence”. With this idea at play people believe they are giving a roadmap to find the collective “social conscience.”
Governments, businesses, and organizations must adapt to a population that wields increasing individual power. What now needs to happen is a governing of this kind of power. Who regulates what is correct to say on these social networks as they begin to infringe upon the civil rights of others life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I feel the story about the coach and his complaints about poor service works as a scenario of too much power. What about the other side of the story or a different perspective. From where was that employee coming from, could he just been caught at a bad moment? Was the coach overreacting or just venting? These become issues that are at play. From the standpoint of the employer, has he not taken too much stock in the information and publicity garnished from a tweet?
Not only can anyone post on the web, whatever they want, they are not liable or brought up on charges of slander. The individual’s power to publish comes from the fact that people are reading. More people are going to read the information written by one who is famous or more well known, however, if anyone reads anyone ones ideas are communicated to another and that learns to have legs and can spread. The internet allows personal opinion to spread fast, like a forest fire, especially when that news and information is “negative” to someone. Gossip ends up working like an accelerant added to a fire. No one knows where it is going to go. In this case of the pizza employee, the fire engulfed him/her.
Any publicity is better than no publicity has become a saying that has come after many stories that have appeared in the press. It is in these stories, where recognition is found, is beneficial rather than negative despite the context. Power to publish is in the hands of many and that power is used and misused daily, people’s behaviors are being modified and their attitudes are changing in this constantly changing world we live in. The new behavior modification technique t hat is becoming prevalent in our society, past operant conditioning, has become this idea that somebody is always watching and ready to flambé you. Social justice is reaching new heights now so call up McCarthy, call up Judge Hawthorne, because we are all becoming witches and Commies at the hands of all the tweeters and Facebook users.
The movie “The Incredibles” puts it best when a conversation between a son and mother poses this idea:
Helen Parr: Everyone is special, Dash.
Dash Parr: Which is another way of saying no one is.
If everyone can publish than does that make everyone publish worthy? This seems to be the debate that Denis Pelli and Charles Bigelow are engaged in. They surmise that with the influx of recent social media (facebook, blogs, Twitter) it seems that today, “at 0.1 percent authorship, many people are trading privacy for influence”. With this idea at play people believe they are giving a roadmap to find the collective “social conscience.”
Governments, businesses, and organizations must adapt to a population that wields increasing individual power. What now needs to happen is a governing of this kind of power. Who regulates what is correct to say on these social networks as they begin to infringe upon the civil rights of others life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I feel the story about the coach and his complaints about poor service works as a scenario of too much power. What about the other side of the story or a different perspective. From where was that employee coming from, could he just been caught at a bad moment? Was the coach overreacting or just venting? These become issues that are at play. From the standpoint of the employer, has he not taken too much stock in the information and publicity garnished from a tweet?
Not only can anyone post on the web, whatever they want, they are not liable or brought up on charges of slander. The individual’s power to publish comes from the fact that people are reading. More people are going to read the information written by one who is famous or more well known, however, if anyone reads anyone ones ideas are communicated to another and that learns to have legs and can spread. The internet allows personal opinion to spread fast, like a forest fire, especially when that news and information is “negative” to someone. Gossip ends up working like an accelerant added to a fire. No one knows where it is going to go. In this case of the pizza employee, the fire engulfed him/her.
Any publicity is better than no publicity has become a saying that has come after many stories that have appeared in the press. It is in these stories, where recognition is found, is beneficial rather than negative despite the context. Power to publish is in the hands of many and that power is used and misused daily, people’s behaviors are being modified and their attitudes are changing in this constantly changing world we live in. The new behavior modification technique t hat is becoming prevalent in our society, past operant conditioning, has become this idea that somebody is always watching and ready to flambé you. Social justice is reaching new heights now so call up McCarthy, call up Judge Hawthorne, because we are all becoming witches and Commies at the hands of all the tweeters and Facebook users.
r u Google dumb?
Is Google Making Us Stupid? As anyone can see that the pursuit of truth is no longer the most desired outcome perpetrated by the acquisition of knowledge. If the pursuit of knowledge is to perpetuate the illusion of truth intelligence than that would be the best definition of what Google is does. It is because of Google’s ease of use that allows its user to be the facilitator of knowledge rather than then the creator and occupier of that knowledge. It is via the use of the tool that it shapes its user rather than the other way around. People have gone from knowing information to a place of accessing that information.
The common person that uses the internet daily becomes victim to that ease of use. When someone utilizes the internet to fill in the blanks that their brain has begun to omit, than they are in fact allowing Google to change the way they think and interact with that knowledge. The need to store knowledge in our own heads has become an obsolete notion, especially when by the pushing of certain buttons can recall that information easier, and most likely more accurately.
This sounds like this recalling, via the computer, is an evolution of the thought process when it is in fact the decline of memory and applicable knowledge. Plato found that the creation and utilization of writing began to affect the thinking process. He believed that more and more people were going to use writing as a place to store their ideas and less effort on holding on to them in their own minds for ease of access. Plato believed that writing could also spin out of control with its misuse and grant power to many people who did not deserve: welcome sophists and rhetoricians.
Google has effectively become the super computer HAL, which Guy Billout, the author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” recurrently writes about as a comparison. Our society constantly relies on the search power of Google and it is affecting our ability to search and create answers of our own. “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.”
The common person that uses the internet daily becomes victim to that ease of use. When someone utilizes the internet to fill in the blanks that their brain has begun to omit, than they are in fact allowing Google to change the way they think and interact with that knowledge. The need to store knowledge in our own heads has become an obsolete notion, especially when by the pushing of certain buttons can recall that information easier, and most likely more accurately.
This sounds like this recalling, via the computer, is an evolution of the thought process when it is in fact the decline of memory and applicable knowledge. Plato found that the creation and utilization of writing began to affect the thinking process. He believed that more and more people were going to use writing as a place to store their ideas and less effort on holding on to them in their own minds for ease of access. Plato believed that writing could also spin out of control with its misuse and grant power to many people who did not deserve: welcome sophists and rhetoricians.
Google has effectively become the super computer HAL, which Guy Billout, the author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” recurrently writes about as a comparison. Our society constantly relies on the search power of Google and it is affecting our ability to search and create answers of our own. “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.”
Monday, October 19, 2009
Google it!
How do you know when you have finally arrived? Well, the first indication could be that your company's name has become THE verb that explains how one extracs information from the internet. When people do not know the answer to a question or where to start researching certain topics they reach back into the recesses of their minds where a simple statement lives and breathes. So they Just do it! They Google it.
When this notion becomes a long stnding joke/commentary on popular media venues like House, than that could be yet another indication that you have reached stardom. While I began to research Google I came across this cartoon clip and I thought it was slightly amusing.
http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/
Even yahoo has included this search feature on their own toolbars to make searching the internet more accessible. I had always thought Yahoo and Google were rivals. In fact back in 2004 yahoo dumped the internet search engine. See article on http://news.cnet.com/2100-1024_3-5160710.html . Yahoo was on its way to creating its own search engine technology. Well, today it appears that Yahoo still needs to be in bed with Goggle. Yahoo's technology attempts to create a webpage for every user of its e-mail. One has the opportunity to choose to put their own favorite wbsites at easy access, their favorite sports teams and cinemas arranged for quick access. However, it is not a web site for the user, it is an adaptable homepage for their browser and e-mail accounts. It personalization seems to be jumping on the band wagon and appears to be a cheap knock off of Facebook, only providing info for the single user.
Google is a sith Lord! That is another indication that you have made it big time. Your name entices notions of the likes of Darth Vader, Atilla the Hun, Satan and Hitler. Evil doers.
"Is Google evil? " Well to suggest things in terms that are so completely contrasting like good and evil allows this argument to have legs that carry it far beyond CEO pocketbooks, but intrige the tech geek conspiracy theories. Is Google a sith lord? Do I need to use it or I will die? I truly don't think so. If we were to look at Google from the perspective of a competitive company, in a capitalist society, are we not going to look for the chink in this juggarnauts armor? I think so. Are all companies only purpose to provide solely for the users or are they not able to think about how to do for themselves? I think not. I feel that if I were a rival company I would spin-doctor anything that could weaken the mobility of Google. I would use powerful langue and rhetoric to make a company, that in fact does provide for the user a product that is easy to use and free for the end user, look bad in what ever form they can. A search engine will destroy the galaxy.
In contrast to the Evil statement which google must have taken seriously, they instituted a code of conduct that is ethical and puts the idea of "Don't be Evil" into practice. THIS CODE IS FOR EVERYONE THAT WORKS FOR GOOGLE; FROM BOARD MEMBERS TO CONSULTANTS. it seems this idea and attitude trickles from the boardroom to the breakroom and has become a motto inside the doors of the institution.
It just appears to me, that if what you want to get out of the internet information in order to devise and hatch you evil plan from your insidious hidden lair, than the information you look for can than be used for evil. Information is only knowledge and knowledge is never bad or good. One cannot blame google for your irrational behavior. They are there only to be able to provide access to informaion, and profit from it anyway they possibly can. Does that make them Evil? No, just in tune to the capitalist society that we live in.
When this notion becomes a long stnding joke/commentary on popular media venues like House, than that could be yet another indication that you have reached stardom. While I began to research Google I came across this cartoon clip and I thought it was slightly amusing.
http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/
Even yahoo has included this search feature on their own toolbars to make searching the internet more accessible. I had always thought Yahoo and Google were rivals. In fact back in 2004 yahoo dumped the internet search engine. See article on http://news.cnet.com/2100-1024_3-5160710.html . Yahoo was on its way to creating its own search engine technology. Well, today it appears that Yahoo still needs to be in bed with Goggle. Yahoo's technology attempts to create a webpage for every user of its e-mail. One has the opportunity to choose to put their own favorite wbsites at easy access, their favorite sports teams and cinemas arranged for quick access. However, it is not a web site for the user, it is an adaptable homepage for their browser and e-mail accounts. It personalization seems to be jumping on the band wagon and appears to be a cheap knock off of Facebook, only providing info for the single user.
Google is a sith Lord! That is another indication that you have made it big time. Your name entices notions of the likes of Darth Vader, Atilla the Hun, Satan and Hitler. Evil doers.
"Is Google evil? " Well to suggest things in terms that are so completely contrasting like good and evil allows this argument to have legs that carry it far beyond CEO pocketbooks, but intrige the tech geek conspiracy theories. Is Google a sith lord? Do I need to use it or I will die? I truly don't think so. If we were to look at Google from the perspective of a competitive company, in a capitalist society, are we not going to look for the chink in this juggarnauts armor? I think so. Are all companies only purpose to provide solely for the users or are they not able to think about how to do for themselves? I think not. I feel that if I were a rival company I would spin-doctor anything that could weaken the mobility of Google. I would use powerful langue and rhetoric to make a company, that in fact does provide for the user a product that is easy to use and free for the end user, look bad in what ever form they can. A search engine will destroy the galaxy.
In contrast to the Evil statement which google must have taken seriously, they instituted a code of conduct that is ethical and puts the idea of "Don't be Evil" into practice. THIS CODE IS FOR EVERYONE THAT WORKS FOR GOOGLE; FROM BOARD MEMBERS TO CONSULTANTS. it seems this idea and attitude trickles from the boardroom to the breakroom and has become a motto inside the doors of the institution.
It just appears to me, that if what you want to get out of the internet information in order to devise and hatch you evil plan from your insidious hidden lair, than the information you look for can than be used for evil. Information is only knowledge and knowledge is never bad or good. One cannot blame google for your irrational behavior. They are there only to be able to provide access to informaion, and profit from it anyway they possibly can. Does that make them Evil? No, just in tune to the capitalist society that we live in.
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