- Image by Coolbiteone / Erickson Ocampo via Flickr
This is a re-post, but it’s something I’d like to get more thoughts on.
The internet has changed the world already. However, there are plenty of new ways to better utilize this beautiful thing called the Web.
One area where the Web is still lacking is learning–specifically, what I’d call Knowledge Acquisition, when you really want to get a big chunk of deep knowledge on a topic.
If you’re new to a topic, and want to learn it at a deep level, where do you begin on the internet? You’d likely go to Google and start poking around. You’ll eventually stop in at the topic’s Wikipedia page. Wikipedia will give you the basics and help you learn some of the terminology to better refine your search results. You’ll then go back to Google and do some more searches.
In my experience, I get the following from this process: 1) SEO garbage 2) overviews that aren’t any better than the Wikipedia page 3) pages that are somewhat on the topic but are mainly just entertaining, and 4) I actually stumble across someone’s online presence that is a very good resource that I should spend some time with but I don’t know it.
Here’s a search on “Visual Design” that I think is representative. On the 2nd page, you’ll find Edward Tufte’s web page. Tufte is highly regarded when it comes to information presentation and design. If you took a glance at his web page, you certainly wouldn’t know it. And I’d be surprised if you even took the time to look through his site.
1) The first problem with the internet and knowledge acquisition is that you have to make a serious investment in going through the material. It’s not just a 400 word article we’re talking about here. And do you want to commit to going through a substantial amount of material that could actually be junk?
2) Google is great at finding specific or popular pages. But when it comes to deep learning, it seems to me Google isn’t very good by default. Google’s ranking system is still largely based on links, and a site gets a large amount of links by having a lot of people link to it. However, deeper knowledge is held within the small community surrounding the topic that may not come up very highly on Google, and either way, as an outsider you won’t be able to recognize this community even if they do. Figuring out who the community is surrounding that topic takes a long time.
I’ve found that the best way to learn about a topic is to go find someone you respect that is knowledgeable in the field. Then, ask them to point you to materials and people to pay attention to. You’ll then find your way through the community and figure out who the real thought leaders are.
This is far and away the best way to learn, but this process could be improved upon greatly. It is also predicated upon having access to someone that is knowledgeable in the topic. If you’re around a university, this may not be a problem. If you’re in the middle of nowhere, it will take you a long time to find your way.
What do you think? Is doing knowledge acquisition on the internet difficult?
-Kevin
5.4.2010
