Finding Needles in Haystacks

Created by Catherine Howell (La Trobe University) on November 17, 2005

Since our ePortfolio activity is gearing up again, the question of student engagement is fairly pressing. How do we get students to USE it? Equally pressing is the dawning recognition that introducing students to multiple systems for information (while requiring them to complete multiple tasks, and locate relevant communities) can be like asking them to look for needles in haystacks.

I think we ask a lot of our students in terms of computer skills and tacit knowledge. I've previously blogged about some of the reasons why I don't like the term "Net Generation": my main gripe is a lack of awareness of the ways in which e-learning can actively promote social exclusion and aspiration raising among the "cognitively excluded". (For more, see Joe Cullen's essential paper, "The Learning Underworld: How Technology Supports Bad Education" -- Joe hails from the Tavistock Institute in London and he wields some impressive data to back up his claims).

So: how do we help students do their necessary (and boring) haystack-searching in more productive and friendly ways?

Affinity networks might provide one answer. Stephen Downes has long promoted the concept of peer evaluation or ratings systems for online learning materials, such as those used by many non-academic online communities (the selection on Relational Metadata in his 2003 essay on Resource Profiles provides an interesting framework). Similarly, in a recent post, Matt Pasiewicz writes:

[...] One might ask a person (an intermediary, like a librarian for source materials or an authority/expert, like a professor for source information and opinion). One might also consult a search engine (another intermediary of sorts). I like the idea of a hybrid system informed by social habits (in mass or from an affinity group) using a range of techniques including maybe full-text indexing ... perhaps combined with some lexical analysis; professional metadata; affinity metadata; and tags."

Yes to a hybrid system, absolutely! I'd like to raise again the concept that I mentioned in a previous post: visualising trails as a way of stimulating student engagement with e-portfolios. If I log into my student e-portfolio and can see the "hot areas" (where people are going, what they're looking at, what resources they're downloading etc.) then wouldn't that be sort of an equivalent motivator to Amazon's Your Recommendations? The Kaleidoscope project created a really interesting framework for implementing this. Now we need someone to actually take up the work and run with it.

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		Finding Needles in Haystacks Created by Catherine Howell (La Trobe University) on November 17, 2005 Since our ePortfolio activity is gearing up again, the question of student engagement is fairly pressing. How do we get students to USE it? Equally pressing is the dawning recognition that introducing students to multiple systems for information (while requiring them to complete multiple tasks, and locate relevant communities) can be like asking them to look for needles in haystacks. I think we ask a lot of our students in terms of computer skills and tacit knowledge. I've previously blogged about some of the reasons why I don't like the term "Net Generation": my main gripe is a lack of awareness of the ways in which e-learning can actively promote social exclusion and aspiration raising among the "cognitively excluded". (For more, see Joe Cullen's essential paper, "The Learning Underworld: How Technology Supports Bad Education" -- Joe hails from the Tavistock Institute in London and he wields some impressive data to back up his claims). So: how do we help students do their necessary (and boring) haystack-searching in more productive and friendly ways? Affinity networks might provide one answer. Stephen Downes has long promoted the concept of peer evaluation or ratings systems for online learning materials, such as those used by many non-academic online communities (the selection on Relational Metadata in his 2003 essay on Resource Profiles provides an interesting framework). Similarly, in a recent post, Matt Pasiewicz writes: [...] One might ask a person (an intermediary, like a librarian for source materials or an authority/expert, like a professor for source information and opinion). One might also consult a search engine (another intermediary of sorts). I like the idea of a hybrid system informed by social habits (in mass or from an affinity group) using a range of techniques including maybe full-text indexing ... perhaps combined with some lexical analysis; professional metadata; affinity metadata; and tags." Yes to a hybrid system, absolutely! I'd like to raise again the concept that I mentioned in a previous post: visualising trails as a way of stimulating student engagement with e-portfolios. If I log into my student e-portfolio and can see the "hot areas" (where people are going, what they're looking at, what resources they're downloading etc.) then wouldn't that be sort of an equivalent motivator to Amazon's Your Recommendations? The Kaleidoscope project created a really interesting framework for implementing this. Now we need someone to actually take up the work and run with it. affinity networks \| information search \| search techniques \| Social Networking \| Students \| Teaching and Learning Catherine's blog Login or register to post comments 5484 reads
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