Sorry, I have been neglecting Olli Answers lately. My nose has been in the code lately and I am really excited about some of the changes coming up that will make Ask Olli a lot more useful and easy to use. However, I find it difficult writing and coding at the same time. When I get sick of one, I can’t bring myself to do the other, so the writing has suffered.

Last night, I read Stephen Downe’s reaction to the next Economist debate, about the impact of social networks on education, and was surprised by his rather vitriolic response.

Downes points to a couple of well-informed blog posts by Will Richardson and danah boyd as examples of better-informed opinions on the subject.

The Economist is Not a Education Jounal; It Shouldn’t be Held to those Standards

What Downes misses is that the Economist debates are for everyone, well Economist readers and others interested in the subject. These debates will reach more people from wider backgrounds than even the most popular education blog. Downes writes:

“I have been talking about social networks for a long time now - and you think it would be useful to go back to a question as simplistic and naive as whether they have a ‘positive impact’?”

A generalist news magazine can’t explore issues to the same degree as the experts in that issue. The Economist’s audience needs to start the debate at the beginning and not jump in at the point where the experts are. I don’t generally agree with the Economist’s politics, but I enjoy reading the magazine because it covers issues in greater depth than other publications while being accessible to non-expert readers.

There Are Experts and The Economist is the Place to Find Them

I find it rather ironic that Downes complains about the Economist’s “cult of ‘experts’” when, until now, I always presumed Downes to be a member of the cult of education experts. Isn’t Downes one of the academic elite in education? He writes:

“People who are taking part in this are very much promoting this political point - specifically, the point that ‘there are experts’ and that ‘publications’ like the Economist are the (privileged) place to find them.”

I absolutely agree with Downes’ point. There are experts and publications like the Economist are the privileged place to find them. And its a good thing too! I don’t want to waste my time sorting through every article on a subject I’m interested in. I like my information distilled.

There Are Experts and Stephen’s Web is the Place to Find Them

What is even more ironic is that Downes mostly just posts links to bloggers and interesting news articles without adding to the discussion. I don’t see how this is different from the Economist. He is like an editor who chooses which stories will interest his readers. There are experts and publications like Stephen’s Web are the privileged place to find them.

Wikipedia vs The Experts

The issues Downes raises neatly reflect the debate currently going over the value of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is completely open, but this openness discounts the value of expert opinions. New projects, like Citizendium and Google’s Knol, were created in response to this criticism to give expert opinions more weight.

What then is the value an expert opinion and who decides what makes an expert an expert?

The Internet has made this a very current question. It makes it easy for anyone to publish; it makes it easy for artists to show their work to a global audience; it makes it easy for musicians to do the same. But how is an art lover to find a piece of art that moves the art lover when the Internet is flooded with mediocre (or worse) artists? How do you find great music on the web? Great bloggers? Who separates the wheat from the chaff?

You decide who filters information for you. Following the recommendations of a blogger who you respect is no different from reading a magazine. If you like the choices that the editor makes, then you get the magazine; if you don’t like the choices, then you would be stupid to get it. Adding blogs to this environment only makes it richer, but that is not a reason to dismiss traditional media.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Education, eLearning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.