Mr.
Natural says ...
It shouldn't be that hard to understand that if we're fishing for a distinct tidbit
of information, a search engine is just the sort of tool we need - needles in
haystacks need strong magnets to be drawn out. On the other hand, if we're looking
for an organized body of knowledge on a topic, we've got a better chance of finding
it with the help of an organized index or catalog. I try to convince my students
- mostly educators - that education deals with organized knowledge - lots of independent
needles don't necessarily make up a sewing it. So it makes sense (to me) that
educators should be familiar with indexes, and should bookmark for future use
expert sites that concentrate materials on specific subjects.
Again, this isn't a particularly earth-shattering approach. Basic common sense
sounds more like it. Judging, however, from the extent to which suggestions such
as this get implemented, many educators simply don't make the distinction.
As many as seven years ago, Richard Seltzer, one of the first proselytizers for
AltaVista (remember them?), made similar
suggestions (and also emphasized using the right tool!). Since Seltzer was
probably best known for suggesting that AltaVista could do just about everything,
his emphasis on using other tools as well, depending on the sort of information
someone might be interested in finding, was particularly noteworthy.
Go to: Nitpicking?, or
Go to: The tyranny of search.