Dealing with the Tital Wave of Information in Spiritual Education

29 Jul

Sometimes you just feel overwhelmed!

Steve Hargadon wrote about the increasing amount of information that is available on the web, and how that information can really become overwhelming! He gives some stats:

“There are over 100,000 blogs created daily, and MySpace alone has something over 375,000 new users (content creators) every day. I remember how much work I had to go to in my childhood to just find information. Now, we must figure out what information to give our time and attention to when we are engulfed by it. Web 2.0 is the cause of what can only be called a flood of content”

The amount of information created related to church content is just as staggering and can sometimes be overwhelming! We have scriptures, general conferences, youth conferences, special firesides, ensign articles, music, topical guides, guide to the scriptures, and much much more… just on the main church website. That doesn’t even begin to include the amount of content created daily by an increasing army of “mormon bloggers” (like me). Often times we can’t even get our students to wrap their heads around the scriptures and the words of the modern day prophets… the single most important source for information… let alone all the rest of the stuff out there. So how can they handle all this information? Steve gives us an answer…

The solution to content overload is to create more content.

Dealing with Information... Making Connections

Every one of us has had the opportunity to teach a class or prepare a talk. We have heard, or even said, that we were grateful for the opportunity to teach because we learned so much while preparing. That is the key for our students as well. If students will create content (writing, video, audio… anything), they are better able to engage the massive amounts of content available out there. They learn where to look for what they need. And then the most important thing happens… it becomes part of them. This is why we have had students teaching and talking in the classroom so much. It is often the act of bearing testimony (in what ever form that might take) that allows them to gain a testimony themselves.

What about you… how do you deal with the massive amounts of content out there now? I use Google Reader as a beginning place and categorize it all. This allows a quick view of what’s new out there on the websites that are important to me.

3 Responses for "Dealing with the Tital Wave of Information in Spiritual Education"

Steve Hargadon July 29th, 2008 at 9:30 am 1
Hi, Jeff!

I recently had something of an epiphany on this topic of content production–as it relates to the Web moving from a “publishing” platform to a “conversation” platform, and the need to learn to be a part of the conversation. http://www.stevehargadon.com/2008/07/solution-to-content-overload-thought.html

Elder Ballard uses the word “conversation” several times in the latest Ensign article. I have something of a standard youth and parent fireside that I give in local wards here, and his article is really helpful.

Thanks for the good discussion (conversation!) here!

Steve
Bryan Beckman July 29th, 2008 at 9:36 am 2
The solution to content overload is to create more content.

I think that statement is worth qualifying, and it’s a shame Steve didn’t explain it further in his post. Two of the biggest challenges I see in surfing the tidal wave of information brought to us by collaborative Web technologies are that of quality and authority. Though the perception is slowly changing, far too many people believe that anything published on the Internet is both factual and authoritative. The detritus accumulating on social networking sites and user forums (e.g., statements of little substance beyond bestowing superficial congratulations or engaging in ad hominem attacks), and unsubstantiated claims that co-mingle with facts on slickly designed, professional-looking sites (e.g., Wikipedia, news blogs) is evidence that we still have a long way to go to find the diamonds in the midst of so much coal. I’m amazed at the level of credibility even some of my university-level students put in information gathered by a single, generic Google search. Fruit that’s fallen on the ground may satisfy a momentary hunger, but does it truly nourish the body? The best stuff is usually higher up, and hidden.

Insofar as Latter-day Saints define creation as organizing unorganized matter, I agree with Steve’s comment. I would argue that at the moment we need to focus a little more on refining what’s already out there, giving it a stamp of authority beyond simply trusting in the paradigm of community authorship to sort the wheat from the chaff, and educating people to dig deeper to find “the best books [or Web sites]” — and a little less on putting up more and more unrefined, unsubstantiated, hateful, and/or divergent content. (Testimony bearing excluded.)

By the way, I also use and enjoy Google Reader. I tried to demonstrate it to my students a few months ago, together with a brief discussion of what RSS is, and most of them just looked at me with blank stares. Not my kids, I tell you!
Jeff VanDrimmelen July 30th, 2008 at 5:15 am 3
Steve and Bryan, Thanks for the great comments! I think this all plays into what President Ballard was saying. Yes, there is a lot of “coal” out there (thanks for the great analogy Bryan), but by engaging in that coal our students can learn to find the “diamonds.” There is also a lot of good… especially when it comes to church content. What are scriptures, if not people writing down their personal experiences with God. That is what increasing numbers of people are doing (in part due to Elder Ballard’s new focus on the internet).

Great insights!