One other thing.
This week, I was messing around on Qwiki, trying to think of things to try that were well-known enough to have a page but sort of harder than cities and such to find (reliable) info on. So I looked up my high school. Now, it's funny: They got the "goose" from the name of the school district, but the mascot really is the "ganders". They also got some of the words to the alma mater, but I really wasn't expecting the thing to break into song. And most glaringly, I graduated in 2008, and while at the time the school is predominately hispanic (about 43%, according to Wikipedia), I'm not sure where they came up with "The school is 112% Mexican".
Qwiki is really neat, but it seems that (for now, at least) we have to take the things it says with a bit of skepticism and maybe do our own research to supplement what it says.
That is an impressive statistic! Obviously, you are all overachievers in Baytown.
ReplyDeleteInteresting point about the validity of information that comes into question, especially with a new network. It reminds me of the beginning stages of Wikipedia, when not too many people were on it which led to very little oversight on information.
ReplyDeleteI completely know how you feel with the surprising statistic! I searched the small town that I am from - Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas in Mexico. Apparently, we have a population of 165 inhabitants. Ok, I admit it is a small town, but come on, 165 inhabitants? There's obviously a discrepancy with the information presented in Qwiki, so I agree that we must take it with skepticism.
ReplyDeleteI guess this is one of the potential flaws for collective intelligence: you can't be sure it's intelligent. Nonetheless, once they figure out a way to filter data and make the information presented more reliable, I feel like Qwiki will be a force to be reckoned with. Imagine looking up concepts in organic chemistry or biology, and having them displayed with text, sound, images, and maybe even animations. If the info were accurate (and I were taking a biology class), I would totally Qwiki Krebs cycle before looking it up in my textbook.
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