Learning opportunities surrounds us. The challenge is to keep an open and curious mind. True lifelong learning may come from bound books, universities or the internet, but the most accessible is television. What, the boob tube? Yes, if you can stay away from the sitcoms and the soaps there is a huge reservoir of learning on the channels of the Discovery Network.
The same questions Rheingold advised his daughter to ask are essential for us as life long learners. Who is the author? What else have they done? What do other people say about them? What are their credentials? If we ask these questions and follow up on the sound bites true learning can take place.
On the TV show Brink (8 July 2009) Nicholas Carr and Tyler Cowen debated whether the Internet is making us “smarter or dumber.” The debaters agreed the internet gave us access to much more data, but they disagreed on the worth of the data. Cowen argued the breadth of the internet gives us access to the finest minds in the world. We are breaking down the cultural information and ordering them into new syntheses to suit our purposes. Every major school of thought can be found on the web and we can use it to create out own prosperity. This access to data lets us turn that data into useful information.
Carr countered with the claim that the internet gives us quick flashes of data that never turns into information. Our attention span is reduced by clickitis, we are loosing the ability to reflect upon and integrate information.
While Carr did not mention it by name Microsoft’s Bing commercials summarize his thesis better than anything I have found.
The tools to learn are all around us. Our mission, should we accept it, is to separate the wheet from the chaff and move ever deeper into life long learning. We need hold on to our attention spans and dig deeper into the web to support our learning over our life time.
On a personal note -- My friend Bill died last week. He lived a rich and full life before passing at ninety-two years of age. Bill published a news letter (Pre Blog) and I was asked to work with him in 1999 to teach him how to use his computer. Bill lived to educate his readership, and his mailing list grew across the world. His daily routine began with a round of tennis until he slowed down in his last year. He spent hours each day pouring over the internet to find articles of lasting significance to share with his audience.
So I raise my glass to a hero of life long learning. Fair thee well my friend. May you have calm seas and a following wind.
Kasloff, S. (Executive Producer). (2009). Brink [Television Series]. Science Channel.
Rheingold, H., (2009, July) 21st Century Literacies [Video File]. Video posted to http://HowardRheingold.blip.tv/
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