Digital Literacy Autobiography
My family shared my love of computers, and were co-owners in one of the first internet service providers to bring internet service to Utah, Nevada, and Montana. I have pursued this love of computers and fascination with their potential in both my personal and professional lives. I am an avid online gamer and have worked in the networking industry as a switching and routing engineer for over 15 years.
My first exposure to online social networking was through Myspace, in my early twenties. In the beginning, it was something that only "nerds" were interested in, but in a short period of time just about everybody I knew had a Myspace account and was using it to share music, videos, and thoughts throughout the world.
Having access to the internet, and specifically sites like Google and Wikipedia, has changed the face of education forever. When I was at Dixie College in 1996, I was the only person in the dorms that owned a computer. Internet access was available, but unreliable and not a priority for the administration. Now I am able to find information on any topic whenever and from wherever I wish. Any question I have, be it academic or just idle curiosity, can be quickly answered through a simple internet search. These search engines provide a starting point for any research I might wish to do, and give direction to verified sources of said information.
Having access to such huge amounts of information can be both a blessing and a curse. The main problem with internet research is validation of data. The format of the internet allows any person anywhere in the world to create articles or websites saying literally anything they want to say. An unwary researcher could easily be misled by these sites. Another possible problem with internet research is the sheer volume of data available. It can be very challenging to sort through all of the information available and narrow it down to the specifics that you are seeking.
Modern researchers must defend themselves from these issues through a combination of skepticism and experience. One must always verify any information gleaned from the internet. The best way to do this is to only take information from trusted sources. Wikipedia has become one of the premier sources of information on the internet. It is not only verified literally by the entire internet using population of the world, but most articles site sources for their information which can be checked or even accessed for more detailed information. Researchers can deal with the extreme volume of data by being very specific in their search queries, and limiting their search to known-good sources of information. The more specific the query, the fewer hits it will turn up on any search engine.
Hi Spencer,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your digital literacy autobiography! Your experience with technology really shows and your narrative just proved it. Thanks for sharing your post!
To preface our course, I also want to add the idea of writing to learn or learning to write with recorded class discussions as always a good thing, esp. in a multimedia environment. Aside from reading sources with a critical eye, the absence of face-to-face interaction to guide critical research might pose a disadvantage so I'd argue that a blended approach to online support could be a better alternative. That is, instead of online teachers giving assignments that involve only reading and writing about texts, perhaps the use of realia can enhance one-on-one interaction and develop skills in determining reliable sources. Dealing with fully-online classes most especially is tough despite the fact that most universities/colleges are now required to utilize distance education... which means more internet research and increased risk of invalid data applications. :(
Thanks for blogging! I look forward to reading more from you this semester.
Dr. B
Can you explain "token-ring" networks? Cool!
ReplyDeleteI appreciated your statement that "having access to such huge amounts of information can be both a blessing and a curse." However, in light of what I have learned since I have begun doing research, I would argue that "a combination of skepticism and experience" is the "best way" an informed information user can sort out credible information. Unfortunately, even trusted sources or seemingly trustworthy sources can provide faulty information. This can occur both through honest mistakes or lack of complete information as well as through corruption and outright misrepresentation. Even some scholarly journals aren't trustworthy in the information age--as publication/subscription prices are forced down by the market, some scholarly journals turn solely to submitters' fees to cover or enhance costs, and ability or amount paid becomes the deciding factor in an article's publication rather than rigorous peer review. This problem is more prevalent outside the U.S., but it is a very real issue. In my research I have come across poorly written articles published in completely unrelated disciplines' journals. This website may be a good resource for researching whether a journal may not be credible: https://scholarlyoa.com/
I can explain token ring networks. Imagine a self-help group like AA or some-such sitting in a circle attempting to share with each other. Some brilliant counselor gets the idea to have a "talking stick". The talking stick allows one person to talk while everybody else has to sit and listen to what they have to say.
DeleteIn early LAN networking, that is how they had to work things out. The network cables and the adapters themselves were unable to speak and listen at the same time (this is called full duplex communication). They had to either be speaking, or listening, but never both (half duplex communication). The token ring network would give the token (talking stick) to one member of the network at a time. They would speak for a short period of time while everybody else listened, then pass the token on. This was done at a very rapid rate, but by today's standards these networks were glacially slow.