This is why I love Wikipedia | 22 comments (22 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: This is why I love Wikipedia (none / 0)

Actually I do not know if it is a bad thing or not. It seems different thought.

I guess I was a bit inspired by this Boingboing post I read a bit back, about the changing patterns of reading, as witnessed by a high school librarian:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/23/high_school_libraria.html

I also wonder what will happen to the products of our culture, if nothing is whole, everything is connected, derivative, and a reference to something else. It seems to me that by consuming and creating fragments, we are not putting ourselves into our products any more, only our interaction with other fragments.

Not sure if this makes any sense. And I am not really certain how I feel about it. Generally I see the increased interconnectedness of our world as a great thing, I just felt like exploring the negative aspects a bit.

by Trond Ove on Sun Feb 4th, 2007 at 07:12:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: This is why I love Wikipedia (none / 1)

Your concern is very valid I think, as is the librarian's in the Boingboing post. I was being a little bit facetious in going on about my shiny nuggets.

But not entirely. I think the concerns expressed by the librarian, and perhaps yours as well, have more to do with the quality and accessibility of general education than with the ready availability of online information. If all our young people have is an endless stream of trivia online, on TV, and in their classrooms, it is no wonder that they don't read and don't have any sort of framework to put their shiny nuggets into perspective.

I think the wide spread availability of information online is on balance a good thing. I think having the educational background to put that information to good use is a much larger and more important issue.

We all bleed the same color.

by budr on Sun Feb 4th, 2007 at 07:47:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: This is why I love Wikipedia (4.00 / 2)

To add to that, there is so much information and so many topics available that although you can chose a few areas to specialise in, there would never be a hope of coming across a fraction of it all, if we didn't have those shiny nuggets in places like wikipedia.

Acknowledging the limitations of wiki, it at the very least introduces you to new things. And should you be inspired enough you have the choice of following it up in depth.

But absolutely, the constant stream of trivia coming at us all makes it far too easy to allow short attention spans and a preference for easy chunks of information to rule how we learn. The skills to concentrate and critically analyse what we are reading are extremely important and the key issue is around whether or not this is being taught/encouraged properly.

by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Mon Feb 5th, 2007 at 07:34:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

This is why I love Wikipedia | 22 comments (22 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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