Google, Wikipedia and the journey from ‘information’ to ‘knowledge’

I watched a fascinating programme on TV last night, Google and the World Brain (available on BBC iPlayer for the next few days for those in the UK) about the whole Google Books project.  It was a story I already knew a little about, but the programme brought lots of different ideas and perspectives together in a very interesting and very watchable way. For those of you not familiar with Google Books, it's an attempt by Google to scan/digitize all the world’s books and make them available online, rather like a huge public library. At first, it sounds like an exciting idea, making ‘knowledge’ available to everyone, but of course, it actually raises lots of important questions; among others about copyright and intellectual property (which I may return to in a later post), but also about access to, dissemination of and mediation of information. For me, it also raised lots of questions about the difference between ‘information’ and ‘knowledge’, which a lot of the proponents of Google Books on last night’s programme seemed to use interchangeably.

The proponents of Google Books, and the whole Google project in general, suggest that by collecting all the world’s information in one place, it will allow everyone to access ‘knowledge’ instantly; a kind of ‘world brain’ (an allusion to HG Wells). They put forward the example of a computer that was able to win Jeopardy, a TV general knowledge quiz. And yes, I can see how a clever search algorithm might quickly and easily come up with ‘correct’ answers to simple quiz questions; the capital of Bolivia or the chemical symbol for iron or the year when John Lennon was shot. But is that really ‘knowledge’? It seems to me, there’s a very long and blurry line from uncontested ‘facts’ to ‘information’ to real ‘knowledge’. And crucially, how you navigate your way through the ‘facts’ and ‘information’ determines what ‘knowledge’ you come out with at the end. Until now, that journey has been influenced by your access to information (which in turn is determined by your access to education,  your wealth and status, your gender, your geographical location, etc.) and how the information is presented to you, how it is mediated. Few of us, outside of the most elite academic circles, receive our information first-hand from primary sources; we read about things in books, newspapers, or magazines, we hear things on TV and radio, from our friends, teachers and colleagues. And of course, all of that is mediated by culture, by politics, by our world view. Do we want all our information to be mediated by Google, an American commercial giant? Do we want what we learn about any given topic to be determined by an algorithm written from a particular perspective?  Do we want a search engine that learns what we ‘like’ and only presents us with what it thinks we want to read? Or, to widen things out beyond Google, do we want ‘facts’ to be determined by consensus? Do we want “Wikiality” where if enough people support a statement on Wikipedia, it becomes ‘the truth’? (Thanks to Tyson Seburn for the link to this article containing this great term coined by satirist Stephen Colbert). For me, the apparent ‘democratization of information’ that has come with the internet, Web 2.0, crowdsourcing and the like comes with a lot of caveats.

As an EAP teacher over the past 7 or 8 years, the importance of teaching students how to assess the information they come across has grown immeasurably. The rather dismissive, “stick to what’s in the university library and Wikipedia is banned” position is no longer tenable. Students do and will expect to find most of their information online, so we have no choice as teachers but to help them navigate the best path through. It’s a pressing issue for all educators, but with such a large proportion of the information out there online in English, I think it’s particularly relevant to ELT teachers, and not just in academic circles. With students from different cultural backgrounds and with different levels of digital literacy, on top of the blurring effect that working in a second language can have (grasping basic meanings, but sometimes missing the subtle details), giving our students the skills to make informed judgments about what they read is an essential part of being a language teacher in the modern world.

For many of us, myself included, up until now this has probably been rather patchy and ad hoc, based on our own experiences. Presented with a range of dictionary websites, I can pretty quickly pick out the good from the not-so-good and the downright rubbish, because it’s my area of expertise and I know what to look out for. But when an Engineering student hands in a piece of writing with a reference to a science website, I can go to the website and, aside from a few obvious clues in one direction or the other, I’m really not in a position to accurately judge its reliability. So my resolution for my summer teaching stint this year is to become better informed and more organized in the way I teach my students the skills they need to become more discerning consumers of the information that’s out there, in the hope that they might do a better job of translating that ‘information’ into rich and meaningful ‘knowledge’.

Critical thinking with the Three Little Pigs

This week, I've been writing about teaching critical thinking in EAP and, perhaps because it was on my mind, was struck by how good the latest Guardian "Three Little Pigs" advert would be to use in class.

It would be lots of fun, especially using the original fairy tale as a lead-in, and it would bring up lots of good discussion questions about stance and perspective.

One of the frustrating things about not having regular teaching is that you don't get the chance to try out lesson ideas like this when they crop up. I generally get a teaching stint through the summer at Bristol Uni on their EAP pre-sessional course. It's a fairly intensive course with a very focused syllabus, so I don't get to try lots of things out, but I usually manage to slip in a few new ideas. Sadly, this year, it looks like I'm going to have to take a summer 'off' because my other work commitments will see me too busy to commit to teaching as well. It would be really nice to have a 'guinea pig class' who I could just dip into when I felt like it to try out a new idea - of course, I'd have to be able to call on them at any time and they'd have to morph to whatever level I needed and be happy to go along with whatever random topic I came up with ...

IATEFL day one

Today was the first day of the IATEFL conference and saw a couple of interesting talks plus some good meetings with friends and colleagues.

I went to the Pearson discussion session - Which words are worth the worry? - with Diane and Norbert Schmitt in Brighton and Averil Coxhead and Paul Nation on a Skype link from New Zealand. It was an interesting session for several reasons. Firstly, it was an odd format. Although the Skype link-up worked quite well, it meant that Diane and Norbert were in the room, but sat at a desk in front of a webcam, which meant you couldn't see them. So the whole thing was very much of a listening exercise with little to look at and it was quite difficult to maintain concentration.

It was fascinating to see Averil Coxhead, albeit only on the screen. She's someone whose work I've followed and had a lot to do with in recent years and who I suppose I had a mental image of. And she looked absolutely nothing like I'd imagined! Some of her comments were very interesting though. One thing that really struck me was when she was talking about potential mismatches between what we think we're teaching students (in terms of vocabulary) and what they think is important to learn. She told a story about a Chinese student who said she was only interested in learning verbs, not nouns, because Chinese people like to do things! It was one of those really interesting thoughts that really got me thinking. I've made a mental note to ask my own (mostly Chinese) students in the summer what kind of language they think is most important to learn. I'm intrigued to see whether Chinese learners really do have a preference for verbs!

I also went to a really interesting session with a former teaching colleague, Catherine Mitsaki, about critical friend groups. She talked about a project in which she put EAP students into groups to critique each others' writing work and to provide peer feedback on a regular basis throughout a course. The idea being to promote critical thinking and encourage learners to be more independent rather than always relying on the teacher. It was a really interesting idea and one I'm definitely going to mull over before I teach again in August. I'm not sure it'll be quite as effective in such a short course (just 5 weeks) as it seems like an idea that takes some time for students to be comfortable with and really start to benefit from. I'm sure I can take elements of it though.

Some interesting food for thought today and looking forward to more tomorrow.

Talking the talk

Hmm, it seems that my suspicions about my latest batch of Chinese students were right. They may be good at talking the talk, but are a bit more shaking when it comes to walking the walk. I just got back their first essay attempts - lots of description, no comment or evaluation! Oh well, small steps ...

The changing face of China

This week has seen the start of my annual teaching stint; teaching EAP (English for Academic Purposes) to international students hoping to start on postgraduate courses at Bristol University in the autumn. The majority of the students generally come from Asia and my class this year is no exception, with mostly Chinese students, a couple of Japanese and one lone Spaniard.

The approach and attitude, particularly of the Chinese students, has changed quite remarkably over the five years I've been teaching the course, and seems to reflect the huge changes that have taken place in China as a whole. Just a few years ago, students fresh off the plane from China would obediently soak up the facts, "learn" them by heart, and spit them out. Everything was black-and-white and every question had a correct answer. The concept of critical thinking was completely alien to them. Getting them to question ideas, to engage with the whys, wherefores and maybes was really an uphill battle.

Over the past couple of years things have begun to change. More "westernised" students have started to crop up. They're better dressed, have all the latest gadgets and know as much about Western popular culture as any British student of their age. At first there were just one or two in each class, but the numbers have definitely grown.

In my first academic research writing class this week, I started off with small group discussions about what their expectations were of the course and what skills they thought they'd need to write successful academic essays. The results were quite startling, without exception, every group came up with ideas about critical thinking, evaluating sources and drawing their own conclusions from evidence.

Now I'm just waiting to see whether they can put their ideas into practice. Will their first attempts at research writing reflect their apparent awareness of what's expected of them? Or have they just learnt all the right things to say from their friends from last year's classes? I'll let you know next week ...