Review of Net Smart: How to Thrive Online | Paying Attention in an Information Rich World Rheingold, H. (2012). Net smart: How to thrive online. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Critics of modern social media and our emerging hyperlinked culture are abundant. Critics warn us that Google might be “making us stupid,” as Nicholas Carr put it. At the other extreme are the cheerleaders. Until I read Net Smart: How to Thrive Online, I thought its author, Howard Rheingold, was a cheerleader. However, in this book, Rheingold’s position is much more nuanced, and indeed helpful, than that of either the critics or the cheerleaders. Here is the author’s own teaser for the book. Rheingold’s thesis is that the Internet can make us either smart, or stupid. Five Literacies The author proposes to show us five key information literacies that are essential to this task. 1. Should we be clicking on the Facebook icon? The answer to such a question is not always obvious. Similarly, should you be focused on your Smart Phone or watching your kid play soccer? 2. 3. 4. 5. Source: Rheingold (2012) p. 6.
Quadramas as a Reflection Tool - Teaching in the Early Years I am so excited about our second Bright Ideas Blog Hop! We have over 180 participants this time around, all with a fantastic idea on their blogs! Get your paper and pencil ready for all of the great ideas you are about to find! This month my “Bright Idea” is using quadramas as a reflection tool. I have used quadramas with my students for many different purposes – reading response activities, research presentation, etc. Below are the instructions for making a quadrama: Begin with 4 pieces of cardstock paper. Next, each piece needs to be cut into a perfect square. When you unfold the piece of paper after cutting, you will get a nice square. Each square will already have one crease in it from the previous fold, but we need a crease going the other way as well. When you unfold you will see two distinct creases. Now you need to cut on one of the creases, just to the middle of the square: Now, you layer the flaps one on top of the other to make one “quadrant.” Here is a view from the top:
How to Test For One Hundred Percent Truth - the 3 Emergence Truth Tests This article was written only months before I discovered the map of the mind. And while these ideas are still true, our standards for accessing truth have since been raised a thousand fold. More important, in 2010, I began work on a new scientific method, one with which discoveries are guaranteed. This method also contains a far more stringent test for truth. This said, this article is still important in that is shows the relationships between my work on mind and consciousness, emergence personality theory, and emergence therapy. It also shows how anything posited had (and still has to) test as true from all three prospectives; from the view of the mind, from the perspective of personality, and as part of a working therapy. On What Do We Base Our Three Emergence Based Theories? The First Truth Test - the Two Geometries (the meta truth test) Socrates had four main areas of study. Logically, one cannot fault Socrates here. Truth for Socrates was a much purer goal. Why this order? Steven
Project Information Literacy: Smart Talks Howard Rheingold: "Crap Detection 101: Required Coursework" Project Information Literacy, "Smart Talks," no. 5, January 3, 2011 Subscribe our Smart Talk RSS feed Printer-friendly version Photo Credit: Judith Maas Rheingold If one word captures Howard Rheingold's writing about the political, cultural, and social impact of new technologies, that word is prescient. In 1987, Howard was one of the first to write about the peer-to-peer power of virtual communities building collective intelligence. Not only does he detect change before everyone else does, but Howard also writes about the complex interplay of technology, society, and culture with clarity, depth, candor, and profound insight. We caught up with Howard in late December and shared some of Project Information Literacy's (PIL) latest findings with him. PIL: Since 2003, you have been teaching college students at Berkeley and Stanford. Dealing with the rate of change is also an issue. Your last question is a big one. Howard: Meet Buffy J.
Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask 1. What can the URL tell you? Techniques for Web Evaluation : 1. 2. 2. 1. INSTRUCTIONS for Truncating back a URL: In the top Location Box, delete the end characters of the URL stopping just before each / (leave the slash). Continue this process, one slash (/) at a time, until you reach the first single / which is preceded by the domain name portion. 3. Check the date on all the pages on the site. 3. 1. What kinds of publications or sites are they? Are they real? 3. Expect a journal article, newspaper article, and some other publications that are recent to come from the original publisher IF the publication is available on the web. Look at the bottom of such articles for copyright information or permissions to reproduce. 4. 1. a. Type or paste the URL into alexa.com's search box. b. 1. The pages listed all contain one or more links to the page you are looking for. If you find no links, try a shorter portion of the URL, stopping after each /. 2. 5. 1. 2. WHY? More About Evaluating Web Sources
Evaluating Internet Research Sources Introduction: The Diversity of Information Information is a Commodity Available in Many Flavors Think about the magazine section in your local grocery store. If you reach out with your eyes closed and grab the first magazine you touch, you are about as likely to get a supermarket tabloid as you are a respected journal (actually more likely, since many respected journals don't fare well in grocery stores). Welcome to the Internet. Information Exists on a Continuum of Reliability and Quality Information is everywhere on the Internet, existing in large quantities and continuously being created and revised. Getting Started: Screening Information Pre-evaluation The first stage of evaluating your sources takes place before you do any searching. Select Sources Likely to be Reliable Source Selection Tip:Try to select sources that offer as much of the following information as possible: Evaluating Information: The Tests of Information Quality Reliable Information is Power Source Evaluation is an Art
Evaluating Internet Research Sources Robert Harris Version Date: January 21, 2015 Previous: December 27, 2013; November 6, 2013; Nov. 22, 2010 and June 15, 2007 "The central work of life is interpretation." --Proverb Introduction: The Diversity of Information Adopting a Skeptical Attitude You might have heard of the term information warfare, the use of information as a weapon. Getting Started: Screening Information Source Selection Tip: Try to select sources that offer as much of the following information as possible: Author's Name Author's Title or Position Author's Organizational Affiliation Date of Page Creation or Version Author's Contact Information Some of the Indicators of Information Quality (listed below) Evaluating Information: The Tests of Information Quality The CARS Checklist for Information Quality Summary of The CARS Checklist for Research Source Evaluation Living with Information: The CAFÉ Advice Books you need:
Crap Detection 101 | City Brights: Howard Rheingold “Every man should have a built-in automatic crap detector operating inside him.” Ernest Hemingway, 1954 The answer to almost any question is available within seconds, courtesy of the invention that has altered how we discover knowledge – the search engine. Materializing answers from the air turns out to be the easy part – the part a machine can do. Unless a great many people learn the basics of online crap detection and begin applying their critical faculties en masse and very soon, I fear for the future of the Internet as a useful source of credible news, medical advice, financial information, educational resources, scholarly and scientific research. The first thing we all need to know about information online is how to detect crap, a technical term I use for information tainted by ignorance, inept communication, or deliberate deception. “Ask a few questions and use available tools to see if you can find answers,” is what I told her when she asked me how to go about investigating.
How To Evaluate a Website - Basic Evaluation Checklist The Web has become the go-to source for many people doing all sorts of research these days. However, judging the truthfulness of information that you find online can be a bit problematic, especially if you’re looking for credible material you can cite in a research paper or academic project. Fiction and reality are not the same thing, but on the Web, it’s getting increasingly hard to tell the difference. To Cite or Not to Cite - That is the Question So how do you divide the wheat from the chaff? Who’s In Charge? Determining the authority of any particular site is especially vital if you’re planning on using it as a source for an academic paper or research project. Are You Telling Me The Truth? Eventually while you're on the Web, you will run into information that is not entirely true. Can I easily figure out who wrote the information? Are You Selling Me Something? Say for instance you’re researching power motor accidents. Is there an overwhelming bias in the information?