July 8, 2008
Will google make me stop wondering? Or my shift to “google plasticity”
Posted by Paul Bogush under UncategorizedThis post was inspired by an interview that my Lunch Time Leader Podcast team did with Sharen McKay, a scientist from Yale University. One thing that she has researched is brain plasticity. Basically making all our neurons in our brain connect instead of becoming dead-ends. See the prior link for a more accurate explanation!
By now most people have heard about how we shouldn’t focus on teaching facts because google will be just a few steps away. “Why bother learning _____ when you could just get in a few clicks from google?” Yes, if you are wondering about something google will give you the answer. I worry about getting my questions answered so easily. I worry that I will not be able to wonder about as many things. I am a big outdoorsy type. What I love about exploring in the great outdoors is not that I can identify almost every plant and tree, but that there are some that I can’t. There are things that I still wonder about when I take a hike – and google has the ability to make me stop wondering about them. An example–there is this bird that sings in the woods every night in the summer. It’s a beautiful song. I have no idea what the name of it is, or what it looks like. Every night I wonder. If I looked it up on google my amazement and wonderment would be replaced by knowledge. I really don’t believe I would ever enjoy dusk the same way again.
Do I destroy my students “wonder?” When we are deep in thought about something in class thinking about all the possible answers someone usually says “look it up on google.” When we look it up and find the answer do I end the thought process, do I destroy the wonder, do I end the curiosity? When we are in the middle of baking home made bread do I just end up buying them some Wonder Bread?
This year when some says “just look it up on google” I am going to make sure that we don’t stop our search with an answer, but that our search leads to another question. Too often google is being used as an end, I want to figure out how to make it a tool that leads students to make more connections, a tool that is used to create questions, a tool that leads to more wonder.
Maybe it shouldn’t be “google plasticity.” I think my issue goes beyond google and can apply to almost any 2.0 tool. Maybe it should be 2.0 plasticity, maybe some other term.
2.0 plasticity – using technology to answer questions students wonder about in order to make connections that lead to the development of more questions, that nurtures their curiosity, and leaves them wondering.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I totally feel what you’re saying — but I guess the answer is all in context. Sometimes I’ll see something, and not struggle through it, and by looking up the answer, I’ll get more interested in the topic. Which leads to deeper questions that Google can’t answer. Other times, yeah, it’s the end of the road. But overall, I’m all for more knowledge because I think it does lead to more wonder. (But to be clear, I don’t agree with the whole ‘they don’t need to know it if they can look it up on Google’ premise.)
There are two diametrically opposed pieces of writing which I love — which are sort of, but actually not totally, related to your post. Edgar Allen Poe wrote a poem about how science is ruining our amazement and wonder of the world around us. Feynman (physicist) wrote about how science increases our amazement and wonder of the world around us. Perhaps the same poles could be used in framing the Google debate.
SONNET — TO SCIENCE (Poe)
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee! or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And drive the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
Richard Feynman: “Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is “mere.” I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination–stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light…. What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter as if here were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?”
Sorry for the long comment.
Sam Shah
July 10th, 2008 at 12:35 am
@ Sam
Yikes, you write so much! Though I guess I am quite the same!!
@ Mr Paul
Now that is what I am talking about, this post is just superb and is exactly what someone needs to read and learn about! Yes, i think that just “clicking on google” will end the fascination and wonder we once felt not knowing what something is. But when you are answered so automatically from Google, your wonder ends short and then you just stop the imagination. So Mr Paul, it is best to let your students focus on the books they read in the library, research from books not internet and the books will lad them to further questions. Think this through and let me know how it turns out.
Good luck and good on you for writing such a significant post!!
Nadine