Twitterers are making my point for me! You cannot get Swine flu from eating pork!! Not to mention all the other misinformation and hysteria being propagated by the ultimately stupid technology! But in all fairness, the same stupidity and hysteria is being spread through other "Web 2.0" "tools".
"Twittering" may be the worse. At least with the typical blog you actually have to sit down and do a little thinking about what you intend to write. Not so with Twittering! Just throw it out there.
Think I'll go get a cup of coffee now - that would be with cream and two sugars.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
News? You think this is News?
I just watched a YouTube video "on the CommonCraft Show" called "Blogs in Plain English". In this they explain that Blogs are "news". News? You call this news? - I'm not writing news, I'm stating my opinion. No facts have been checked and double checked here. No events reported on. No useful information what so ever is being published for the benefit of anyone or anything. NO NEWS here folks. Yet still it's blogging!!!!
All these "Web 2.0" tools are being touted as the next great revolution! The internet is going you know where in a hand basket. What use to be an effective tool for finding valuable information is becoming cluttered with worthless dribble, half truths, and inaccurate information by well meaning characters who think someone gives a care about what they think.
So, what's the harm? It wastes my time! Do a search on any subject and one of the first results is a "Wiki" - ANYONE can post anything to a wiki. It isn't a source. News Flash Students!! Wikipedia is not an authoritative source! While there may be some factual and very good information within any one wiki or one article in a wiki, there's no guarantee. Other search results could be someone's blog where they happened to have typed the particular words you used in your search enough times to trigger the search engine. That doesn't mean they have any useful information about my topic. If I'm sucked into clicking the link and visiting their blog, what a waste of my time!!!
More than that, this instant gratification that often results in us receiving inaccurate information is forcing what once was reputable news sources to ever increasingly shorter deadlines that make the necessary double checks to insure accurate facts difficult, if not impossible to do and results in an ever increasing potential of inaccuracy. News papers are falling by the wayside, which in itself is not necessarily bad, if what is replacing them is an online version of real news coverage. But if we are in ever increasing numbers relying on unreliable sources for our news, we are worse, not better, for this new found freedom of expression.
Now our schools are touting Blogging and other Web 2.0 tools as the next best teaching tool. OOOHHH, our students are going to be so intelligent because they know how to blog, twitter, post wiki articles. Pish Posh!! We're worrying more about the medium and less about the content. We're giving our kids an over inflated sence of their importance. REALLY - who do you think cares about the ramblings of a 12 year old. Their parent! And that's about all - you don't need a Blog to have the audience of your parents.
All these "Web 2.0" tools are being touted as the next great revolution! The internet is going you know where in a hand basket. What use to be an effective tool for finding valuable information is becoming cluttered with worthless dribble, half truths, and inaccurate information by well meaning characters who think someone gives a care about what they think.
So, what's the harm? It wastes my time! Do a search on any subject and one of the first results is a "Wiki" - ANYONE can post anything to a wiki. It isn't a source. News Flash Students!! Wikipedia is not an authoritative source! While there may be some factual and very good information within any one wiki or one article in a wiki, there's no guarantee. Other search results could be someone's blog where they happened to have typed the particular words you used in your search enough times to trigger the search engine. That doesn't mean they have any useful information about my topic. If I'm sucked into clicking the link and visiting their blog, what a waste of my time!!!
More than that, this instant gratification that often results in us receiving inaccurate information is forcing what once was reputable news sources to ever increasingly shorter deadlines that make the necessary double checks to insure accurate facts difficult, if not impossible to do and results in an ever increasing potential of inaccuracy. News papers are falling by the wayside, which in itself is not necessarily bad, if what is replacing them is an online version of real news coverage. But if we are in ever increasing numbers relying on unreliable sources for our news, we are worse, not better, for this new found freedom of expression.
Now our schools are touting Blogging and other Web 2.0 tools as the next best teaching tool. OOOHHH, our students are going to be so intelligent because they know how to blog, twitter, post wiki articles. Pish Posh!! We're worrying more about the medium and less about the content. We're giving our kids an over inflated sence of their importance. REALLY - who do you think cares about the ramblings of a 12 year old. Their parent! And that's about all - you don't need a Blog to have the audience of your parents.
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