Hiding in the crowd

One thing that amazes me constantly about knowledge ‘experts’ is their low levels of understanding about digital-knowledge. Not the content, such that was held in the hallowed pages of print, but the way it now exists online.

Even if you never knowingly add to it, you do — every click you make, every download you take — the Internet’s watching you.

So if you don’t like Facebook, Google, Twitter or the very idea that ‘everybody’ is adding knowledge to the world – as inane as it might seem to you – my suggestion is that you keep well away from it. Like it or not your micro actions are wired into macro changes. No one’s asking for written comments.

What is mind-blowing are comments reflecting a belief that the Internet is some form of second-class form of publishing or knowledge. A place for amateurs and the unwashed. However when EdTech research is presented with an n of 5 and conclusions drawn, you have to question how this makes it first-class – given Google and Facebook are using semantic data analysis in real time with an n=1 billion every second.

Finally – schools, fond of filters – who specifically target social media sources now have to completely BAN Google.

I ‘ve met plenty of teachers who think Google is the same now as five years ago (they just change those cute logos) but  can’t explain how Google is changing knowledge. The assumed knowledge and belief is that Google is some second-class network.

Wake up, Google is is now mingling social media sources in it’s results. I hope you know what that is significant.

Of course the hubris and banning will continue, and no doubt the shield of ‘privacy, quality and equity’ will be raised in defense – but seriously — the Internet doesn’t care what you think – it only cares what everyone does.

If this sounds like a rant — then you are a candidate to STOP using technology. I have no problem with that — you get to believe what you like. This isn’t some opt in reality. You might want to use Way Back Machine – which lets you select the internet year you are comfortable with.

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