OISE Gang of Four (c. 1994)

OISE Gang of Four (c. 1994), originally uploaded by complicitytheory.

Lilja, Jason, Tracy and Gary when were were at OISE/UT in the mid-90s doing graduate work in drinking beer and eating wings. Lilja’s come back to Toronto to finish her doctorate and is coming over for dinner this week. Gary’s hopefully visiting from Manitoba where he teaches education this month. And where is tracy now? I think she’s on a beach in costa rica. (yes, that’s hair on my head)

Wikipedia’s New Definition of Truth (closer to reality)

Slashdot | Wikipedia’s New Definition of Truth

Simson Garfinkel has an interesting essay on MIT Technology Review in which he examines the way that Wikipedia has redefined the commonly accepted use of the word ‘truth.’ While many academic experts have argued that Wikipedia’s articles can’t be trusted because they are written and edited by volunteers who have never been vetted, studies have found that the articles are remarkably accurate. ‘But wikitruth isn’t based on principles such as consistency or observability. It’s not even based on common sense or firsthand experience,’ says Garfinkel. What makes a fact or statement fit for inclusion is verifiability — that it appeared in some other publication, but there is a problem with appealing to the authority of other people’s written words: many publications don’t do any fact checking at all, and many of those that do simply call up the subject of the article and ask if the writer got the facts wrong or right. Wikipedia’s policy of ‘No Original Research’ also leads to situations like Jaron Lanier’s frustrated attempts to correct his own Wikipedia entry based on firsthand knowledge of his own career. So what is Wikipedia’s truth? ‘Since Wikipedia is the most widely read online reference on the planet, it’s the standard of truth that most people are implicitly using when they type a search term into Google or Yahoo. On Wikipedia, truth is received truth: the consensus view of a subject.’

Personally, I don’t see what the point of this is. Truth has always been socially constructed. It is only that the social structures pretended that the truth was immutable and external to social norms. I like the fact that truth is now a transparent negotiated location of contestation rather than a pronouncement by an opaque social institution. YAY wikipedia.

learning and research in second life workshop

learning and research in second life workshop, originally uploaded by buridan.

Yes, it is all about learning!