Information Overload
Howard Rheingold reflects on his own experience as a lecturer, a parent, and a member of American society while discussing his book:
Rheingold, H. (2012) Net Smart: How to thrive online. MIT Press: Cambrige, MA.
He reflects on the myth of the 'digital native' in a world in which technology and information are ever present. While access to technology and information is freely available, there is limited knowledge of how to process and respond to this information. I was encouraged while watching Rheingold's conversation, to reflect on how I manage information overload. There are two concepts that Rheingold discussed that connected with my own experience of information overload: attention and the role of the 'elders'
Online technology has created a world in which multiple things are competing for our attention at any point in time. As Rheingold discusses, the various forms of instant messaging mean that my personal and professional networks have immediate access to me through a variety of online technologies. I often find myself apologising to students in my office as my multiple devices all 'beep' within a few seconds of each other telling me about a new message or my next appointment. When using my iPad in my teaching, students have witnessed my latest facebook notifications flash across the top of the screen. My attention is often divided. Likewise when researching a new topic, tangents quickly emerge. While this would have once resulted in a few extra hours in the library, this now can quickly lead me past dozens of articles and other types of information within a very short space of time. While technology has provided easy access to information, the ability to attend to that information 'well' is more difficult.
Rheingold says that in a culture which is changing slowly, it is the job of the elders to teach the young people what they know, but in a culture that is changing rapidly, it is the job of the elder to teach the young people how to learn. This caught my attention because of how it is true in my experience, as well as the impact this can have on my current teaching practice. As a student doing a Bachelor of Arts, I was taught how to learn, how to research, how to communicate. While the topic of the subjects were important, the skills of becoming a self directed learner were also addressed. Later when completing a Masters of Speech Pathology that used a Problem-Based Learning approach, along with the rest of the cohort, I was constantly challenged to 'trust the process', as we developed skills in problem solving, research, and clinical reasoning and reflection as well as the foundational practical clinical skills required for practicing as a Speech Pathologist. We were taught to target our attention to the learning required for the task, and when the amount of information was overwhelming we were reminded that we were learning how to learn rather than blinding collecting the 'informations' we needed.
As a teacher of undergraduate students, I find myself torn between 'needing to cover all the material', and supporting students to learn how to learn and apply their new knowledge. The pressures on this are both my internal expectation of myself and the students, as well as external pressures of university and school expectations of student learning and experience, and the external expectations of the students themselves, many of whom do not arrive at university ready to be active participants in their own learning.
In writing this reflection, this last point of student expectations and readiness for active learning, has grasped my attention. How can we facilitate students' early engagement with their learning in a way that it builds learners with increased self-efficacy and motivation?
At: GBN Network member, Howard Rheingold, at GBN in Conversation on April 2, 2012 discussing his latest book "Net Smart: How to Thrive Online." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3bZUxkcNEE
Howard Rheingold reflects on his own experience as a lecturer, a parent, and a member of American society while discussing his book:
Rheingold, H. (2012) Net Smart: How to thrive online. MIT Press: Cambrige, MA.
He reflects on the myth of the 'digital native' in a world in which technology and information are ever present. While access to technology and information is freely available, there is limited knowledge of how to process and respond to this information. I was encouraged while watching Rheingold's conversation, to reflect on how I manage information overload. There are two concepts that Rheingold discussed that connected with my own experience of information overload: attention and the role of the 'elders'
Online technology has created a world in which multiple things are competing for our attention at any point in time. As Rheingold discusses, the various forms of instant messaging mean that my personal and professional networks have immediate access to me through a variety of online technologies. I often find myself apologising to students in my office as my multiple devices all 'beep' within a few seconds of each other telling me about a new message or my next appointment. When using my iPad in my teaching, students have witnessed my latest facebook notifications flash across the top of the screen. My attention is often divided. Likewise when researching a new topic, tangents quickly emerge. While this would have once resulted in a few extra hours in the library, this now can quickly lead me past dozens of articles and other types of information within a very short space of time. While technology has provided easy access to information, the ability to attend to that information 'well' is more difficult.
Rheingold says that in a culture which is changing slowly, it is the job of the elders to teach the young people what they know, but in a culture that is changing rapidly, it is the job of the elder to teach the young people how to learn. This caught my attention because of how it is true in my experience, as well as the impact this can have on my current teaching practice. As a student doing a Bachelor of Arts, I was taught how to learn, how to research, how to communicate. While the topic of the subjects were important, the skills of becoming a self directed learner were also addressed. Later when completing a Masters of Speech Pathology that used a Problem-Based Learning approach, along with the rest of the cohort, I was constantly challenged to 'trust the process', as we developed skills in problem solving, research, and clinical reasoning and reflection as well as the foundational practical clinical skills required for practicing as a Speech Pathologist. We were taught to target our attention to the learning required for the task, and when the amount of information was overwhelming we were reminded that we were learning how to learn rather than blinding collecting the 'informations' we needed.
As a teacher of undergraduate students, I find myself torn between 'needing to cover all the material', and supporting students to learn how to learn and apply their new knowledge. The pressures on this are both my internal expectation of myself and the students, as well as external pressures of university and school expectations of student learning and experience, and the external expectations of the students themselves, many of whom do not arrive at university ready to be active participants in their own learning.
In writing this reflection, this last point of student expectations and readiness for active learning, has grasped my attention. How can we facilitate students' early engagement with their learning in a way that it builds learners with increased self-efficacy and motivation?
At: GBN Network member, Howard Rheingold, at GBN in Conversation on April 2, 2012 discussing his latest book "Net Smart: How to Thrive Online." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3bZUxkcNEE