Recently while commuting in the train, I overheard a mother and child conversing aloud. (Keeping in mind that in Singapore, academic achievement is always the top priority of most parents. The mother is in her mid 30’s while the boy is around 9-10 yrs of age.
The converstation
Son: Mommy, I need to go do research later.
Mom: Chinese or English?
Son: It’s on “Should P.E.(Physical Education) be a compulsory subject in school?”
Mom (repeats her question): Chinese or English?
Son: Of course its English.
Mom: There’s no need to do research, its your own opinion.
Son(with a sigh): I cannot be writing one line, right?
Mom (after a pause):Ok, then it should be about the benefits of sports then, but why can’t u do it at home? we have internet?
Son: But its too slow.
Mom: Ok, then its about the benefits of sports that you have to write.
Son: Yes, mum, you just stole my idea (ended with the two of them giggling)
What dawn upon me after I “evedropped” (with the rest of the commuters in 5m radius) into this little conversation is this;
“How has “research” changed in the last 2 generations?”
In my days when I was in school, research means spending an afternoon after school, at the community library flipping through reference books, paying a few cents per page to photocopy those pages that we need (pretty bad quality prints), and copying by hand those few sentences that we think is not worth paying or cannot afford to photocopy with our little pocket money. (I guessed that’s what mom is thinking about.)
Now, research to me is not an extra-curricular activity. Almost any information is at our fingertips, provided; we have an internet connection, & a device that can google search, print screen or download or even print to a nearby printer.
Any information or unfamilar words, highlight it, right click and say google those ‘words’.
Many years ago, when Google was about 2 years old and with limited online information and publication, a CTO of a local IT company told me; “With the right words, you can google for any answer.” He cannot be more right now!
Learning challenges of the Connected generation
In the old days, learning challenges came from where do I find these information? And most often, these information that we obtained from publications are more often authentic and mostly true.
Using tight keywords and phrases search
However, times has definitely changed, acquring information is not the main problem now, in fact we are overwhelmed with information just by a simple keyword search on Google or Bing. Depending on how tight we put forth the keywords or phrase query, we are constantly bombard with search results that consist of both relevant and irrelevant info, some true and some untrue. This comes with practice and yes, a logical mind in which you would phrase the search criteria, don’t expect one word searches and you will get what you want, that’s also why Google has that “I feel lucky” search button in the past but has been removed. (Currently, Google searches make use of your browser history to create some intelligence matrix to your searches, for example, you have been visiting a lot of sites related to palm oil, and if you search for lubricant, palm oil relevant sites will be of higher relevance, imagine if you have been visiting “pleasurable” sites, guess what will top your list?)
Validating the results
It may be everyone developed a skill to do this, but it is certainly the era of trying to validate these vast search results and adopting methods and discipline to evaluate the authenticity of information. Not only does it apply to the schooling son, but to mom as well. How many times did we see “shares” on FB or Google, or even crowdsourced news web sites populated with hoax information from unvalidated sources, but being lapped up by the social media population? These information spreads like wild fire fueld by Likes and shares.
Most average persons are eager to “share” these ‘wow’ , ‘amazing’, ‘unbelievable” information without having a second thought to check on the creditability of the sources, sometimes with sheepish results (when somebody pointed out, hey, this is not true, its a hoax, and friends started pointing, ” Hey, its not me, I don’t know, I just share it from who and who” as the finger pointing goes up the ladder.
Let me share a few checks which I practice before I share anything.
I asked myself the following questions, (yes, I talked to myself!)
1. Is the source credible?
2. Does the information or event even sound possible?
3. I don’t care if there is a million share, am I unwittingly becoming a broadcasting point for this rumor spreading network?
4. If the information sounds real enough, how can I validate it with a credible source, just to be sure.
5. Lastly, if doubtful, don’t share it or even Like.
With these steps in place, I think the internet holistically will be a more pleasant and credible source of “research”.
Joe Yee 