Is Google Destroying Learning?

“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.” –  Friedrich Nietzsche

There was a time when if you wanted to research something you had to go to a library.  I can easily recall the hours of time I would spend at the local county library researching topics for school papers.  The library was probably the very first place my Mother and Father would allow me to stay by myself.  They would drop me off and I would find a corner or chair to call home for the next several hours.  And I would get to work, rifling through the card catalogue, browsing articles in reference materials and spinning my way through news articles on the microfiche machine.

My experience wasn’t unique.  If you were born before 1990 you probably had very similar experiences in middle and high school.  And while we may not have appreciated it at the time we were learning.  Learning to gather information from a variety of resources on a common topic, learning to distill that information into something new that we created … we were actually learning HOW to learn.

Since then the computer age has ushered in a whole new way to access the world’s information, and libraries have become symbols of antiquity.  No longer do you have to spend hours looking through reference indexes to find material, then read it to determine if it contains the necessary information you are looking for.  You no longer have to separate the unrelated material and refine your search.  No Google can do all of that for you in milliseconds.

Case in point, tonight I was “helping” Aiden with his homework.  I use quotes because as I look back I may not have truly been helping at all.

He is working on a chart for his 6^th grade Science class discussing the phases of matter, their properties, as well as describing how the properties change during phase changes.  A project certainly worthy of a little research elbow grease.

But that’s isn’t how he completed it.  No instead he would formulate a series questions based on what he wanted to know and as I watched him, he entered each of his questions into the search box for Google.  Google would use it’s trillions of pages of stored information to locate what it thought was the most relevant answer and Aiden could read two or three sentences and then write down the answer he was looking for.

If for some reason he could not find the answer he needed, he would come over and ask his question to me, just as he had Google.  Before I realized I was being used the same way I use Siri, I would try help him by talking him through the answer but he wasn’t patient enough to not immediately get the answer.  And would start settling for whatever he could find on Google.  In most cases, I believe he got the correct answer but I’m not sure he learned anything accept the answers to potential trivia questions like “At what temperature does water evaporate?”

Is using Google the equivalent of using a Calculator in Math Class?

Don’t get me wrong, I think Google is an amazing tool, but is it creating a bunch of kids who can find the answer to any question but not understand the WHY behind the answer?

As a parent, my research skills were embedded in me in an analog era and I have no idea how to help my sons use these tools to build good learning habits.  They know how to find the answers but can they truly research a question.  How do you balance using the power of modern tools like Google with the need to understand how it works and where it doesn’t?  We’ve had the discussion that “not everything you read on the internet is true.”  But to me that consideration falls short of helping to describe how and why to do better research online.

After he was done for the night, I grew very concerned about this dilemma and what it could mean for Aiden and our future:  if young people become the best consumers of information but produce little on their own.

I am very interested in your ideas about how you’ve addressed this with your kids or students.  Please consider sharing your insights in the comments below.

iSavants

This morning an interesting headline caught my eye.  It said “The Most Important Skill of the 21st Century”

So naturally as someone who will hopefully work for the first third of the century I decided to check it out, call it self preservation.  Here is a link to the Article ; I was surprised when it said that “Computer Programming” was the skill of the 21st century.  There was one line that really stuck out to me …

[Writing Code] is the new literacy

As a Programmer I found this article very interesting.  But one of the nuances of this finding, that the article does not explore, is that if we agree that Writing Code is the new literacy … is being “Tech Savvy” the new illiteracy?  For many years we’ve known that in order to succeed in the modern economy an individual needed to know how to use a computer … they had to be what was commonly called “Tech Savvy”.  When this term became common place many years ago, it assumed that knowing how to use a computer is something that not everyone did, or could.  It may have been because of environment, access to a computers, training, interest, or because a computer was not easy to use.  Therefore the potential employee that knew how to use a computer was set apart … they were “Tech Savvy”.

But times have changed …

I argue that what was once “Tech Savvy” is no longer good enough, because the computers (phones and tablets) have been designed to hide their technical complexity behind very simple interfaces. In fact every product in Apple’s entire product line is designed to make using it simple, requiring less and less savviness to use with each revision.

Has the movement toward improved UI design in apps created less knowledgeable  users?

My oldest son Aiden is 11.  He can to ANYTHING with an iPod, iPhone or iPad.  He does homework on it, he communicates with his friends through Instagram and posts videos out to his network.  He is by all definitions a true Millennial.  He has never known a world without the internet.  Don’t know something … ask Google, but even now that’s too much work because it requires typing … just ask Siri.  And necessarily repeat the question over and over again until Siri finally understands what you are trying to say.  It really would be easier to type in the question.

These tools are designed so that everyone can do all of these things; today Aiden’s technical abilities are nothing special.   The high degree of designed simplicity and integration have fooled people into believing they know how to use technology.  They are no longer using the technology they are using a developers vision of the technology with no ability to change or modify it.  Ask these iSavants how the technology works and you’ll hear everything from “I don’t know” to “Magic”.  It used to be that USING technology required you to UNDERSTAND technology … but that dependency is no longer true.

In Aiden’s case while he is doing all of these things the moment he gets a pop-up with come kind of error message he calls for my help like an old grandpa.  “What is wrong with this thing!”

I can only imagine how insulated many people will be from the process of computing in the future.  In fact there was an incredible short story written in 1909 called The Machine Stops that predicted mankind’s dependence on machines and simultaneous inability to understand them.  It is an amazing read.

Programming IS the skill of the 21st century, because it provides a level of technical understanding that very few other skills can.  It will tell you how computers work at the most basic and lowest level, how they communicate, how to modify them and how to create entirely new computer services.  But our isolation from the technology is going create fewer and fewer people who have this kind of knowledge and skill.  But while we will know less of it we will become more dependent on it as everything with a microchip in it will require someone to program it.

I’m gonna go see if I can find a computer programming camp for Aiden this Summer, and dust off my old Java books.

A New Look at QR Codes and My Geek Flag

For no other reason the technical curiosity I’ve become very interested in QR Codes over the past few months.  And that is perhaps the Geekiest statement I have ever written.

It was just a couple of years ago that Quick Response or QR Code first gained popularity while at the same time Microsoft was trying to create a proprietary version called Microsoft Tags. There was some debate in the darkest of geeks basements, typically covered in Star Trek Voyager posters, as to whether Tags or QR Codes would be come the standard way of bridging the physical and virtual worlds. And the technical folks among us started including them in the signature blocks or our email and on our business cards. Presumably because entering the information from the card or email into one’s contact folder was too onerous a task to be done manually. But after this initial flutter of activity Microsoft Tags went by the way side and the use of QR Codes slowed.

But very steadily I noticed the reemergence of QR Codes in new and interesting ways. In fact looking at this 2012 Technology Hype Cycle you can see that QR Codes are now moving from the “Trough of Disillusionment” and entering the “Slope of Enlightenment”

New QR Code Use Cases

I was in New Jersey waiting for a movie outside of a pet store. This modern version of the old classic had several very cute puppies in the window. To allow passers by to learn more about the animals and their breed the store had posted QR Codes on the outside glass. When you scanned the code with your smart phone it took you to a web page which had information about the puppy including many of the common questions that patrons ask. It was a pretty smart way to leverage the data they had in a way that helped encourage people to learn more about the “product” the store was selling.

Later in the Summer I was on my annual pilgrimage to South Carolina to buy fireworks (the good kind) for the 4th of July. The fireworks store has monitors up in all the aisles which play videos of each of the fireworks in that aisle going off. This allows us wannabe pyros to see the effects of the firework to know if we want to purchase it.

The problem is you have to wait for several minutes to see the firework you are interested in demonstrated on the video. But this store created QR Codes for each of their fireworks which was posted next to their price on the shelf. When you scanned the QR Code it took you to Youtube where you could see the video for that firework on your cellphone.

Then you could decide whether you wanted to purchase “Hillbilly Armor” for your party. Which you do because it rocks, just like Hillbilly Armor should.

Lastly, I think it was the third Alien movie where Sigourney Weaver’s character debuted a barcode tattoo on the back of her neck. And there have been several interesting uses of Barcode tattoos in the past including:

But are people brave enough to attempt a QR Code Tattoo? If so what would you connect it to? After all making a small error in the wrong spot would make the entire tattoo a failure. But check this out … this is what happens when it goes well:

In fact there was even a tattoo shop that used a QR Code to search for new artists. The published a QR Code with no description which needed to be filled in exactly to work. When any would be artist completed the QR code and scanned it, they found the real ad asking them to apply as a Tattoo artist. Pretty cool.

What other neat uses of QR Codes have you found? Have you seen a Credit Union or Bank using them for a interesting application? It’s beginning to look like retailers have found the right way to use them to share information with consumers and I think we will definitely see more of them.

Teleflora – An Epic Social Media #FAIL – Updated!

Three weeks ago red blooded American males were gathered around our TV’s in celebration of that most American event called the Superbowl. The game of course is not only celebrated for the football that will be played, but for the foods that are eaten and the commercials that are run.

Early in the first quarter this ad was played:

Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of men decided they needed to buy flowers for Valentines Day.

Me included, and for the added surcharge you to could “Give” on Valentines Day and make sure your flowers (and chocolates) arrived on the big day.

Fast forward to the big day. I thought it strange that during the day I never got the message from my wife that “The flowers came they are so beautiful ….” instead by the time I got home at 6pm still no flowers. Checked my email nothing from Teleflora about any delays.

But when I checked Twitter there was an explosion of people complaining that Teleflora was emailing them that night and saying that they were not going to be able to deliver their flowers … despite in many cases them being ordered just a few minutes after the airing of their million dollar ad during the Super Bowl.

Screen shots of some of the many complaints that were being aired:

In real time more and more complaints were being added by the second.

It wasn’t in just one place in the country it was happening everywhere.

And all along Teleflora was silent. As a tidal wave of negative publicity was sweeping over Twitter they were silent. And Twitter became a feeding frenzy with links being sent out to media and reporters asking for someone to look into all of the money that Teleflora took from people and never delivered.

I know someone that’s gonna have a tough day. Marvin you should call in sick today, cause you are going to be on BLAST!

So it goes without saying that you should never buy any flowers from Teleflora ever … they can deliver a great Super Bowl ad, but they can’t deliver on the Super Bowl of Flower Days.

Unlike Teleflora every company today has to be monitoring Social Media and when something goes wrong you have to engage.

To see just how big a failure this was, if Teleflora took you money and you didn’t “receive” add your name and order number to the comments section of this blog and we’ll keep a running total of just how many Valentine Days they ruined!

KoFacts.com Has Best Month Ever!

That’s right November has been a banner month, not just because Lauren and I celebrated our 12 Year Anniversary, and not because I started at job at the Credit Union.  No, November saw more traffic across my blog that any month previously recorded.  In fact traffic has been building steadily for the past 6 months.  And no it does not include my visits, nice try.

KoFacts.com Traffic Report

By far the most popular stories are my article on trying to get my Facebook account back after it had been hacked appearently this happens to a whole lot of people and they get directed to my site by Google.  Coming in second is my blog pleading with the writers of 24 to kill off Jack Bauer then make him go through another autrocity of a season like last season.  In third place is my article on How to Use Disney’s Photopass.  As good as Disney is about putting great things together they do not do a great job explaining to visitors to their parks just how wonderful this service is.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to let 870 visits a month go to my head, I’m not quiting my job …yet … there’s too much good material in there, and I won’t be walking into the Golden Corral expecting to be given priority seating (I know you still have to tip the gal to get the best table.)  

If you are a frequent, or just an occasional reader, I do want to thank you. 

 

 

The Most Important Reason to Use Facebook!

When I get the chance to log into Facebook (or FB as we Internet elitists call it) I am amazed by the people who are actively using it from Lauren(my wife) who is a prolific blogger/writer on FB to my Mother and Godmother who love to post pictures of Family and friends to share.

But when I look I also see all the folks who are not using it.

Tad is a Bad Mamma-Jamma

I recently spoke to my Sister in Law about FB and asked when she was going to get on so she could share more pictures of my super-cute nephew, Tad.  She said she had no plans to get a FB page anytime soon. She wasn’t ruling it out but it would not anytime soon.

I completely understand the idea that many people share which is that FB is a fad and will quickly be replaced by something else. Does any still use MySpace? But Facebook is MySpace refined. Typical reasons cited for not using Facebook:

1. I don’t want to post information about myself on the Internet. (Certainly valid, but remember FB can’t publish anything you don’t give it, so you are in complete control of this one.)

2. It’s only for Teenagers and Pedophiles. (Frankly a very dated argument, actually Facebook’s fastest growing segement is Women over 55)

3. I don’t have time for it. (That’s right, you probably don’t. I’m not going to lie you will look up from your computer and say “I did what for three hours!”)

But here are the benefits of using Facebook

1. Easily Share Photos, Videos, and News with Friends

2. Reconnect with Friends and Classmates from High School or College

3. Use it for Networking with Colleagues and Business Contacts

4. Kill Hundreds of Hours Playing Mostly Awful Games (Completely Optional) 

But perhaps the most important reason to use Facebook is because you are already on it. That’s right your photo is already plastered all over Facebook and it has your name on it. Remember that embarrassing night in college . . . yeah that’s right . . . the one with the leather chaps and the wig . . . it’s on there. You see when your friends use Facebook they post pictures that include you AND they are putting your name on the picture in a process called Tagging.

IF YOU WERE ON FB you would have the chance to Approve or Disapprove that Tag taking your name off of that embarrassing photo, but since your not . . . that photo will have to stay.

So let’s try an experiment. Let’s take my brother, Steve. He is not on Facebook, but look in just a few minutes I’ve pulled all of these photos of him from other profiles.

Photos of Steve on Facebook

Steve has never posted a single photo of himself on Facebook yet he probably has upwards of 20 photos already published. 

How many photos of you are already on FB?

So why do you need to be on Facebook . . . .the fact is you are already on it  . . . you might as well make it official.

Spring Cleaning Your MySpace Page . . The Contest!

Please for the love of God update your Myspace page.  It’s spring, update your lay out, your status update, your profile song, your pictures . . .anything.

 Do you still have those photos of you at the Halloween Party on your myspace page?  It’s time to update them.  Your friends care about you, all except for Tom, they want to know what you are doing.

Let’s have a contest.  Post a reply showing your original MySpace page and your updated one.  Let’s see who can create the most improved MySpace page.  Then send this blog to your friends and challenge them!

 Kris

Idea Generators for This Week – 3/16/2008

News Updates and Articles for 3/17/2008

Interesting Articles from This Week – Idea Generators

Preserve Your Time – This article appeared in the N and O this weekend and has some novel ideas about managing your time at work.

A Lesson From Apple:  How to Make Users Fall In Love With You – Discussion of Apple’s design principles and link to their development guidlines for the iPhone

The Connected Generation – The idea of Presence in business communications.

Latest Facebook Application Pays Users – A new feature in Facebooks allows you to profit by recommending products to your online group of friends. 

Message From Col Wessup

So I’ve had this idea for a while.  To recreate famous scences from famous movies but do it with kid actors.  So today I actually took a swing at having my son Wes recreate that famous speech by Jack Nicholson, as Col. Jessup, in A Few Good Men!

Here is the text from the original scene:

“Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know — that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.”

Here’s Wes be sure to stay through the end I’ve included some other famous movie quotes and bloopers:

It was alot of fun and Wes loved seeing himself on the computer . . Because someone is bound to ask I created the video using Ulead Video Studio and shot the raw footage on a Sony Digital Handycam(DCR-SR40).

Kris

Custom Poker Chips . . What a Great Idea!

I’m shopping for a new poker table and was making the rounds through the online shopping sites when I ran across this unique offerring.

Pokerstarsdirect.com offers custom poker chips.  You provide the image and they will add it to casino quality clay chips. 

 

Talk about an awesome gift for that poker playing friend.  After I get my new table I may have to ante up for some of these.

http://www.pokerstarsdirect.com/custom-chip-information.html