Skip to main content

Beyond the first page

At a recent school science exhibition - kids had done a great job with the models. There were models of rockets, telescopes, water harvesting systems, forests and so on. Like with any exhibition the children (and the parents) had put in a  lot of effort.

What struck me here, though, apart from the fact that people had put in effort was in some explanations. Many of the charts, explanations - were saying the same thing. Indeed, many of them were from the same source - 'Google' - and specifically - 'Google First page' and 'Wikipedia'.

So, for all the hard work, much of the information sources were common. Not that there is anything wrong in it  - after all it is the most common source of information today.

But as one progresses, one needs to go beyond the 'first page' in anything.

In a world where everyone has access to the same internet - information is democratic - everybody gets the same. Clicking something on google is not 'research'.  It is just the first step. How to go beyond that? Because the internet which was 'different' years ago - is today the commonest resource for everyone.

How does one go beyond the first page?
How does one teach children to go beyond the first page - metaphorically?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

No conferences

Decided not to attend any conferences this year. Atleast not the typical ones I have often ranted about here. Will be both choosy and intentional about which ones to attend.  The ones to attend are the ones put up by practitioners of a craft. The rest is marketing one way or other. 

And the unconference happened

 Most conferences have an agenda. No, not the stated agenda, but an agenda of marketing, airtime to sponsors, ensuring the past and future customers are invited, of ensuring that the "stars" of the industry are invited and attention showered of them. All in all it is a your scratch my back, I scratch your back syndrome. Some of these become cliques and claques and therefore the real point behind a conference is lost. And then there is the unconference - organised and run by the alumni of the ISABS ODCP program. And as the name suggests, this is truly an un-conference organised by the alumni, for the alumni. No funders - except the alumni themselves. No sponsors. Just the team.  I havent seen a more tastefully organised conference (yes, its an unconference).  To begin with - the location - not a typical star hotel, but an outdoorsy place. The food - simple. The welcome - personal. It was like a homecoming. The setting was warm and welcoming. It was a smaller conference. Ju...

The power of jotting down ideas

 Long long ago, I always used to carry a small letterpad with me. To jot down ideas that might occur. Over the years, it has changed from a notepad to evernote to google keep, but the power of jotting down ideas is immense.  Small ideas go into keep.  Anything to be quickly typed goes into whatsapp as a self message.  Bigger or better formed ideas go into Google docs A few are still written, but I manage to copy them into a digital format sooner rather than later.  But the power of jotting down is immense. My google keep is an encyclopedia of ideas - most of which may never get implemented.