-Social Q&A tends to foster more open conversation, an environment in which questioning until true understanding is acceptable whereas with a teacher or librarian we might sometimes feel like we need to move on.
In the school setting we sometimes encounter topics which perplex us completely. Many times asking a lot questions leads to the frustration of the teacher who may think the questioner is being a wise-guy or wasting time. Many times classmates get frustrated as well due to different learning styles.
For this weakness teachers could take a lesson from LIS instructor Donna Bair-Mundy. She truly welcomes questions and makes sure her students understand the topics at hand. She uses repetition and rephrasing. I know there are other teachers like her.
The library setting has years of social perception to overcome. Reference interactions are adjusting from a hierarchical exchange to a conversational one with methods such as sharing the computer screen, phone, and computer options like 24 hour reference. Libraries are increasingly implementing the use of technologies that the “younger generations” (Dempsey) feel comfortable with and use regularly, such as SNS. Demsey points out that “The library is used to providing rather than adapting” but has moved into adapting to technology and joining the game of branding to compete as a service provider. The library is moving away from being a scar y place or one drowned by rules. Hopefully, the image of a librarian shaking her finger is fading.
-The open forum of social Q&A, for example Answerbag, provides higher chances for more feedback from people with many different experiences and those who have gone through trial and error. It’s the classic “many heads are better than one.” Leibenluft says, “[Yahoo!] Answers draws a large enough crowd that you're likely to get an answer almost instantaneously.” But we don’t know other user’s credentials.
The Lerman reading suggests we can filter out the noise by friending other users, “Rather than actively searching for new interesting content, or subscribing to a set of predefined topics, users can now put other people to task of finding and filtering information for them.” But how do we know who to friend in the first place? For example, many people accepted the friend invitation of the Vaseline lady that I discussed in last session merely because they were eager to have a friend on the What to Expect site. Some friended and then asked, “do you have children?” A key thing to know about someone who is offering advice on a SNS for expecting and current parents.
On the other hand, Lerman’s claim that “Social networks increase story’s visability,” can also be extended to social networks increase the visability of user questions as some of our classmates discovered on Answerbag. Lerman also acknowledges that, “In order to be effective for personalizing information, the social networks created by users have to reflect their tastes and interests. Some users appear to accumulate contacts for the sake of having contacts, or reciprocate every request to be added to the contacts list.”
-Schools and libraries have the benefit of tangible proof, a citation that can be consulted repeatedly. With social Q&A there are more chances of hearing that “my friend’s sister said…” or bad information given either unintentionally or maliciously. Leibenluft acknowledges this when discussing Yahoo! Answers: “It encourages bad research habits, rewards people who post things that aren't true, and frequently labels factual errors as correct information. It's every middle-school teacher's worst nightmare about the Web.”
What may make matters more confusing is a sites inconsistency. Leibenluft mentions that Yahoo! Answers can contain quality information in certain academic subjects. The problem is users are not likely to which.
Members of this class have improved that weakness by giving information AND providing a link to citations.
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Once again it is dangerous to make broad claims. Every person and every site is different. For instance the Gazan article (in discussing Marshall 1998) states that the highlights and written annotations in a used book are a benefit because of a perceived authority of the previous user and a feeling that one is not alone. I’ve actually never hear this opinion before. The people I’ve known in both under grad and grad school, friend or acquaintance, and I look for the used book with the least highlights and notations so that we can then ignore the remaining. Our thought is that the previous person has probably been excessive or wrong, and we’ve actually proved that they were wrong many times. If you’re wondering, yes, I do highlight and make notes.
Gazan also states that digital libraries must encourage people to be content consumers AND content creators. Society is still in a funny transitional period. While there are many people who share that position, there are still many people like me who would prefer to go to a source with experts that I know I can rely on rather than one which encourages my or others’ participation. The following quote by Gazan is still very much a comfort to me and something I look for:
“Though designed as systems for knowledge discovery, the majority of digital libraries operate from the traditional expert model. Subject experts create content, digital library experts provide access to it, and individual users consume it. Very few systems have been built with an architecture that encourages users to create content, associate it with collection items, or share their impressions with other users.”
When annotation become more widely used I will appreciate the ones with the possibility of hiding them, as Gazan mentions; however , would most likely only use them if I had to due to a fear of what else has been altered.
This is part of the evolution of Web 2.0 and the reason that all of the studies we are reading will have to be redone periodically.
And food for thought…
The article “Deep Reading” by Maryanne Wolf and Mirit Barzillai argues that the immediacy of digital information seeking is threatening the development of “slower more cognitively demanding comprehension process that go into the formation of deep reading and deep thinking.” (Educational Leadership, March 2009.)
GT,
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is a need to be able to find the expert advice. Sometimes ancedotal information by a group of strangers just isn't what we are looking for. But sometimes it is, like Amazon.com rate of individual business, it makes us feel comfortable to know that a vendor did 100K transaction with a 99% positive rating.
Libraries contain large collections of knowledge. Most of this knowledge is repeated in the multitudious tomes. What users want is a way to seperate the volumes that will speak to them, form the less desriable tomes. This of course is personal and libraries could us a dose of ancedotal information to help users choose.
BTW: I am like you. I really don't like buying marked up books, but I leave copious notes in the edges of mine.
Regards, Tom
You are so right about the way a classroom is structured, it isn't meant for any kind of Socratic questioning. Although, I work at a school who has adopted the AVID program wherein they incorporate tutoring two times a week, and the kids (on their own, along with say a college-aged tutor) raise questions about assignments and probe each other and notes for what they do know. However, most classrooms aren't designed that way because teachers are often pressed, like you said, "To move on." And, since it isn't part of the culture of a classroom, it becomes a frustration for the remainder of the students who "got it".
ReplyDeleteI think libraries haven't adopted that sense of question and answer as well. Can you imagine a lone student or two at the reference desk asking all kinds of questions and the line gets longer? In the same way you asked, "How do we know who to friend in the first place?" I think libraries may be able to provide a similar "matching" service for people who need study groups in various subject areas. Although, as I write this, it isn't the most intuitive way to form groups of similar interests.... There has to be a way where libraries can do something like what the SNS have done. For example, if a library puts a program on about Gaming, and a certain clientele show up, they can then invite those same people to formulate a community, right?
I suppose that's one way of getting together like-minded individuals to explore topics that interest them. If they keep the doors open to their "exclusive" club, then more people can join or not. I think it would have to be designed like those online communities where it's easy to drop the membership.
Anyway, like you and Tom, I don't like books that are highlighted and marked also. It feels like someone is telling me what to think rather than making sense of the material on my own. Although, I like comparing notes with others after the fact.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that dislikes highlighted or marked books. I was also surprised to hear them referred to as a benefit. I try to avoid them but if not I usually pay no attention to them.
ReplyDeleteAlso, like you I prefer to go to experts. One drawback of allowing or encouraging content contribution in digital libraries is the motivation of content contributors. Wikipedia has done a good job but for other sites I feel like the loudest and most opinionated are disproportionately represented. Someone can have great ideas but for a variety of reasons (time limitations, difficultly expressing idea, shyness) they don't share. I think this will continue to be a problem as the same problem exists in the offline world.
Frankly say, I like to read the highlights and written annotations in a used book. Different people have different way to think and pay attention on different topic. From their annotation, you can get some hints and pay more attention to the places which interested by some others. It can ignite and broad your thinking. Of courcse, the annotations may be wrong and you don't need to totally believe them.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that Social Q and A can foster open conversation, I don't think that it necessarily does so better than a school. Most of the stimulating intellectual discussions I've had were in an academic setting. I think it depends on the environment of the school and the format of the classes.
ReplyDeleteAcademic settings and online Q & A sites don't mix particularly well because of their different priorities. The culture of Q and A sites like answerbag doesn't reward lengthy, well researched responses as much as simple ones.