Rule
1, Remember the human. "The root cause appears to be [that] neither
the TA nor the students had any idea who was at the other end of the
line," he wrote. "All they saw was a computer that should be giving
them answers."
Another view is that the teaching assistant and the students were simply
reacting to the media hype that has been telling anyone who will listen
that cyberspace resources are about to replace books, libraries, librarians, and all other traditional repositories of information. For example, a
recent TV commercial for a telecommunications company shows
happy and cooperative teenagers in a videoconference learning about
the history of jazz from an apparent expert who's connected to them via
a voice and video hookup. Of course, the commercial doesn't tell us
whether the expert is being paid for his time or who did the work of setting up the cyber-classroom.
A third explanation -- along with a solution, thank goodness -- has been
advanced by
Phil Agre. In a tremendously useful article called "The Art
of Getting Help," published in his electronic newsletter
The
Network
Observer, Agre noted that both the students and the TA displayed a lack
of knowledge of where to get help. Agre points out that everyone needs
help with research projects, that getting help is a skill, and that this skill
is not inborn. I highly recommend retrieving the article (instructions
are in the footnote below). (Endnote #24)
Agre suggests that all students should be taught how to get help before
they're turned loose on the Internet. It's the
teacher's responsibility to
help the student focus a project down to the point where he can start
asking for help. The next resources to use are the obvious ones -- reference works and research librarians who are in the business of being
asked questions.
Agre also points out that we shouldn't "get hung up on the Internet,"
but should "think of the
Internet as simply one part of a larger
ecology
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