Tag Archives: Facts

The information landscape.

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My previous post looked at understanding information as a ‘thing’. Something to be gained, manipulated and used for purposes hopefully with wisdom. I likened the current state of affairs as the information environment being an overgrown jungle. So many different platforms and modes accessible to users.

I was challenged to explore the different aspects of the information landscape. When you consider the  formats available and the delivery modes, one realises that information is a constant in our lives. It is everywhere, every day, every moment of our waking lives.

Information comes to us in all forms of carriers: the internet, books, recordings, manuscripts, etc. This fact of course is liable to change in future. The concept of the World Wide Web is relatively new when you think of the history of the industrialised nations. In future who knows what will exist that doesn’t exist today! It is no wonder then that the definition of information is undergoing change on a regular basis, or at the very least being extended to include new definitions.

McCreadie and Rice discusses access to information utilising 4 conceptualisations. Information is a resource or a commodity that can be produced, purchased and manipulated; information is environmental as it provides perceived data in our surrounds; information is representational; and information is a communication process. The concept of environment really struck a chord with me. Yes I was aware that information is around us, but I hadn’t thought consciously that our environment is providing ‘data’ that we need to analayse on a consistant basis.

This leads to the equally interesting illustration of the Shannon model. Could information presentation and communication be a bit like Chinese whispers? I know too well the obstacles and challenges that come with Chinese whispers. As a hearing impaired citizen, gaining information can be challenging when relying on audio alone. All the more reason to double check what I have heard, and investigate environmental data to confirm my understandings.

Navigating facts and seeking reliable information leads us to consider different levels of information available. As Masters students, we were asked to investigate the deep web and interact2. Such vast domains with even more information that forces us to carefully analyse and use wisely. Information presented in the digital sense, is truly layered, dense and complex.

With information at our fingertips and increasingly accessible to people from all walks of life, what are the ramifications of this reality? Reflecting on my own use and access to information, I can identify three benefits and negatives.
The benefits:
1) Availability. As a teacher, I am striving to ensure my students are  informed and guided young citizens. I therefore need to have access to current and relevant information with which to inform and educate my students no matter the topic. Information that I need is there when I need it. If I don’t know something, I can search and find it.
2) Accessibility. I can inform myself as a teacher, student and citizen on current news and data that will be relevant to my life. I can learn new skills by accessing instructions and procedures. I can entertain myself by accessing visuals, podcasts, and literature. I can educate myself by logging in to my online learning modules at any time or place.
3) Currency. Having access to information all the time means we can be armed with current information and be in the present. When researching topics, whether it be as a student or teacher collating useful sources for my students, I can access information that is recent, relevant and up to date with the latest research.

The negatives:
1) Constant. My previous post talked about the realities of living during the world pandemic that is COVID-19. Daily, the news blares out new statistics, images of doom and gloom and a sense of hopelessness. We wake up to a radio spewing information. We turn on our computers to open up emails to access information. We check noticeboards for information. No matter what we do information is in front of us, whether we are deliberately accessing it or not.
2) Overload. For me, information overload is a new sensation that is proving negative. Interestingly it is making me understand how my mind works in more detail. Being a citizen, a parent, a teacher and now a student, I am having to access all sorts of information in all sorts of places. With dates and information to remember, calendars are very useful tools for keeping track of engagements and so on, but still there is so much. Come Friday’s, it is not uncommon for me to say “My brain is just too tired”. Surely a sign of information overload.
3) Higher expectations. With greater access to the information landscape, the expectation to perform to a higher degree increases. I listed my roles earlier, all of these roles have different expectations. With information at every turn, the pressure to keep up to date, perform and evaluate is always there. Beginning this course, I knew I would have to prioritise my time differently and complete more work. With this fact, the pressure to perform definitely increased. Without ready access to information, I don’t think I would be up late completing readings online, comparing my work to other examples online to ensure I am performing well, receiving multiple emails to complete the next task whatever that may be. Yes, constant accessible information certainly means we pressure ourselves with higher expectations.

Yet the information I access is just ‘the tip of the iceberg’. Combe’s infographic clearly illustrates how much we use and access.

Information will always be in our midst. How we access, interpret and use it however will, I’m sure, be an ever changing realisation.

Understanding ‘information’.

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I call myself ‘old school’. Why? I tend to use pen and paper a fair bit when jotting down thoughts, ideas, questions and taking notes from readings. But therein lies my downfall. Another assignment looms in the not too distant future and so I must add my thoughts here.

The last few weeks have been a huge challenge for everyone right around the world. The reason? COVID-19. I often find myself questioning the reason for undertaking this course now, but of course none of these challenges could have been imagined at the beginning of the calendar year. And so, here I sit, my mind feeling like a computer screen with about 100 tabs opened, too many thoughts and ideas to categorise effectively and reflecting on my readings.

I realise then how paramount it is to be studying the TL course. Information. It is everywhere! It is being delivered on so many different platforms. It is being presented in so many different modes. It is challenging our understanding of intended meanings.

Yes, the information environment at present reminds me of an overgrown jungle.

Information was a word I always thought I understood. Simultaneously I view it as: complex, simple, informative and critical amongst a list of other adjectives. I never really questioned the complexity of the information environment, except to understand that it was something humans needed to know in order to navigate educational opportunities.

My first challenge was realising just how many understandings of information there are. Semantic, classic and data-knowledge continuum. That it could be broken down further on so many levels. That it could be visualised as a part of a continuum in which information could be seen as chaotic and, when understanding is realised, it could lead to wisdom and sensible applications.

I’m very much a visual learner/ individual. To help me understand concepts I’m often drawn to diagrams, graphs or draw my own images to understand my thoughts. I really liked the information heirarchy illustrated in the module. However to understand it clearly I stretched it out on a horizontal continuum. In doing so, I could better visualise the direction data, being objective facts, can develop into wisdom, having a higher purpose.

That there are different types of knowledge and the fact the attributes vary depending on use of information is also important. As teachers, we are constantly running pre-tests to test students individual knowledge. When sharing the responses, we take this individualised understanding to a group level. By applying our teaching content to student tasks, we share the societal knowledge that forms the basis of global, historical, cultural and identity understandings.

So what have I learnt? I think the better question for me is: What have I realised? I realised that I do know more about information than I thought I did. Or better, I understand the complexities of information even more so because I have been challenged to think about it consciously. As teachers we are being exposed to, manipulating and experiencing information every day. We are assisting our students to do likewise. It is part of human nature. The behaviour of information affects how we communicate our knowledge and how we learn to use it to make necessary applications. It is multi-faceted. It is ever-changing and challenging our thinking processes on a daily basis. If we find it complex, how much more so is it for our younger generations?