How Do You Discover?

Search engines have become the staple of WWW discovery.  They are best used to find specific content – which is great – however, how do you find something you’re not looking for?  First off, you may wonder why anyone would care to do this.  As we all know, we don’t stumble across this hilarity by randomly searching for techno viking.  We don’t wake up in the morning and decide to search for Michael Kirkpatrick’s list of the top 5 Greasemonkey Add-Ons.  Without some previous knowledge of the content, search engines yield less than optimal results.  This void is filled with push information applications.  Today’s Web 2.0 platforms and tools enable discovery of the unknown and enlighten users with a wealth of information.

Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, and StumbleUpon are just a few popular platforms powered by the collective contributions of millions.  These social networks virally spread information in which the most interesting, useful, important information is surfaced through human filtration.  RSS is another architecture for push technology.  Sites like Alltop and PopURLs utilize this to aggregate feeds from hundreds of sources.  Amongst all of these, Twitter is arguably the most powerful platform for the spread and discovery of information.  It has vast potential and its adoption continues to grow.  Numerous applications have been built around its architecture.  Sites like Tweetmeme and Twitturly publish the most popular links across the “tweet-isphere”.  This filtration allows for the most important content to be discovered.  URL shortening sites like Bit.ly also publish and tweet popular links.  Follow @bitlynow as it tweets the most popularly shortened url every hour.

The Internet is still so young, yet we’ve seen SO many creative applications that empower the world to learn and discover new things.  Imagine the tools we’ll be using in 2, 5, 10 years from now!

There are thousands of other push information technologies out there.  What do you use?

Edufailure

Derek Brandow (@derekbrandow) shared this awesome video with me and the rest of the YB Group.  This basically summarizes the group’s purpose and Derek’s mission.  It truly is a revolutionary concept to traditional education.

I feel a lot like the networked student.  I have always been motivated to teach myself and learn about topics I find interesting.  This is especially true over the past few months as my assigned school studies have been put on the back burner in lieu of other learning “projects”.  Although I’ve learned a ton throughout my 17 years of academia, this last term has been a perfect summary of education’s failure.  My tenured marketing teacher is a lazy (I’m using his words) talking head, my business strategy professor seems to think assigning busy work (“doable’s”) isn’t a complete waste of time, and my human resource class is a bore of legality and political correctness.

I’ve learned more about marketing and in particular, the future of marketing through technological disruption of traditional media, from my own studies.  This is especially depressing considering the money and resources poured into universities and education in general.  Although I’m very appreciative of the opportunity and privilege to attend the U of O, I will be thrilled to wave it goodbye in only a few months so I can move onto something new and (get ready for the cheese) start a new chapter in my life.

When it comes to education and learning…

Throw a kid a laptop and with the right motivation and direction, he can learn anything.

Ignore Academia When Writing for the Web

A lot of my time lately has been spent preparing to heavily redesign and rewrite Waste Recovery System’s website.  With the help of books, blogs, videos, and even an experienced web developer, I have learned how to approach writing for the web and principles of good web design.  I have brushed up on my CSS, xHTML, and I plan on diving into more advanced Photoshop techniques.  I have enjoyed investing countless hours into this project.

Of all the things I have learned, writing for the web has been the most significant.  As most are aware, writing on the internet needs to be easy to read and to the point.  Employing white space to improve scan-ability and reduce reader fatigue is critical.  Writing for the web is similar to business writing, however, as web designer Johnathan Curry pointed out, online language needs to be written at a sixth grade level for the majority of the targeted audiences.  At first this was a difficult adjustment from typical academic writing and it is a skill that needs further refinement.

So why don’t schools teach this?  Writing for the web is arguably more useful and important than the standard essay format and language that is taught from grade school to college.  This goes back to the educational system’s molasses-like evolution which fails to keep up with the real world.

For those interested, check out these 10 writing tips for web designers.

Education Evolution

I stumbled across an article by Chris Dede, a professor at Harvard University, in which he describes the evolution of education and how technology has created new tools and become a resource for learning.  As a late 1980’s baby, I have grown up with computers.  I’m a digital native and it’s something I have been fortunate enough to benefit from throughout my life.  I can hardly imagine life without the internet when people resorted to libraries for research and learning.  Although libraries are great and they have their place, they are a tool of the stone age that will eventually follow the lead of the horse and buggy, but that’s a whole other topic.

The web has drastically changed our ability to access and retrieve information.  It has reinvented education’s capabilities since its short history yet teachers and society still seem to underutilize the internet for learning.  While online learning does have its shortcomings from over saturation and noisy distractions, it will continue to evolve to become even more powerful.  Similar to the business environment, teachers will need to adapt to technological advances or fail.

Be sure to take a look at some of the resource links Dede mentions in the article.  There are many which I have never heard of.  One that he fails to mention, which I have found extremely useful as of recently, is lynda.com.  Their videos teach everything you need to know about various computer applications, programming languages, etc.  They are more effective and efficient than any computer class I’ve ever taken.

In Response: “Shut Down the Public School System”

Derek Brandow shared this thought-provoking interview with Alvin Toffler in which he gives his unfiltered opinion of today’s education system.   He explains how public schools are designed for an industrial society.  Students are still being taught the same material, using the same methods our parents were raised with.  Granted, education has changed slightly, but not nearly as much or as fast as technology which has dramatically shaped today’s world.  This problem is also not limited to primary public education but it’s also something I’ve seen throughout college.  Although not quite as prevalent, many of my professors continue to regurgitate sterile definitions and key words.  This can be helpful to some degree, however, it finds more use in academia than in the real world.  This encourages students to learn for tests (and grades), not for life.

Personalizing education leads to a much more efficient use of time in which students can enjoy learning.  Throughout my life I’ve had various interests which I have taught myself such as web design, graphic design, flash animation, and salesmanship.  My public education did not give me the resources to learn these subjects which interest me most.  I have spent countless hours throughout my life self learning.  I didn’t do it for a grade.  Today I am trying to dip my feet in all kinds of activities to expand my experiences and knowledge.  This is especially true as I approach “the real world” in a few months after graduation.