Madsen's Musings

I sense a theme emerging in my observations: despite my age, being a learner is transporting me back decades… too bad it didn’t also cure my arthritis. 🤪 (Or advise me to buy Moderna stock.)

 Even though I’m old and learned how to learn the old fashioned way- from lectures and books- my brain has been co-opted by the Google, and exactly like my adolescent charges, I just want to find the answer!!! I want to type in the search and copy and paste whatever Google spits out from its convoluted algorithm. Alas, that is not effective, discerning research, so I was forced to actually think and try to make sense of all the digital goodies waiting for me down the rabbit hole.

As far as my ability to find articles goes, I found it started quite slow but then got more efficient and effective after I’d learned a few things:

• Primary observation: I needed to get more specific with my search terms, otherwise my searches were yielding far too many potential candidates for me to consider in a reasonable amount of time, and I was having to sift through things that were not necessarily pertinent to my inquiry. For example when I was searching the UBC library database, I needed to specify secondary teaching because I was encountering a lot of articles specific to college and university teaching. And there were THOUSANDS of them, so even reading the overview was futile.

 

• Another obstacle I had was that I was very specifically looking for information that was going to help me in my current professional context. What that meant was that I wasn’t learning about the topic in general like I traditionally do when I’m learning something new, where I do the learning and then ultimately down the road apply it to a given context. In this case, I really very much wanted to find resources that were immediately applicable to what I am doing, so that made the search process more complicated. (I guess this is more evidence of my Google-addled brain: I crave instant gratification!) Consequently, as I was painstakingly conducting my research through the lens of my own inquiry, I found resources that I think are quite relevant indeed.

 

• I was also reminded that we often have resources available to us in human form that can help us with research and recommendations. It wasn’t until I was nearing the end of my research that I remembered that my teacher librarian colleague had already curated a number of resources that were very specific to my pedagogical context and therefore relevant to my inquiry. How much time could have been saved if I’d turned to the information master of my universe sooner…

 

• Another observation is that when you know exactly what you are looking for, obviously it is easier to find it. For example, I was looking for videos on YouTube about High Tech High in San Diego. Obviously I quickly and easily had a successful search. And obviously that doesn’t happen much in the world of online research…

 

• I found it quite easy to locate current information on my topics in my broad, general Internet searches as opposed to the UBC database where I was encountering information that was outdated. When, learning from my mistakes, I included dates in the parameters of my search, I came up with very little. Obviously when you are looking for resources on the integration of technology into learning, something that is over 10 years old is no longer going to be that valuable a resource. Therefore, I would say that I was more challenged trying to find scholarly literature on my topics as opposed to still very valuable (and I would argue “scholarly” given those involved in their creation) resource websites such as Edutopia or ASCD.

 

To conclude, my key “big picture” observation: Becoming a learner again gives me empathy for my students. One of the challenges is managing distractions. That includes environmental, like things around me that take my attention away, such as cats that want to be played with. There is also the temptation of the wider Internet and notifications coming in. (Extra difficult when searching on YouTube, the ultimate rabbit hole!)  And lastly- and who knows if this is a challenge that any of my students have- 🤪 is the need to stay focussed on the task at hand and not get lost reading stuff that is interesting, yet not directly relevant to the assignment you’re working on. I can only hope my students have that level of intellectual curiosity! 

 

Click here for APA formatted References for Inquiry Resources