I've been intrigued lately by two platforms that provide a different experience than the typical "Google" search.
One is called Wolfram-Alpha and the other Qwiki. Both are free to use and both, I'm guessing, would provide an interesting research experience for students.
Wolfram-Alpha is probably best known these days as the engine behind Siri, Apple's much-touted personal assistant in its latest operating system. Unlike Google, Wolfram-Alpha works by searching its own database of curated information, relying on human fields of knowledge. Essentially, it attempts to employ greater semantic understanding to return a response that is computed for you. It tells you, for instance, what a triangle is if you search that term. (And if you mean the musical instrument, you can choose that response.) Google, on the other hand, searches the web and returns websites and documents that you then sift through in order to determine what is most relevant - which site has the definition of triangle. So Wolfram-Alpha is probably best at returning factual data, while Google would still be a better way to find the perfect romantic getaway.
Qwiki makes search a multimedia experience. Again, the information is curated, and comes from a variety of online sources, such as Google, Youtube and Wikipedia. But the presentation is what makes Qwiki so interesting. The information returned is in the form of images, video and narrated text, and you have the ability to interact with all of it.
Below is an example of the search returned when I typed National Writing Project into the Qwiki search window:
View National Writing Project and over 3,000,000 other topics on Qwiki.
Interestingly, it appears that Qwiki is poised to let users create their own curated, media-rich content and turn them into Qwikis.
I see pros can cons with these kinds of search experiences for students. On the one hand, I appreciate the multi-sensory experience of Qwiki and the fact that it leverages various literacies that digital knowledge has to offer, in a seemingly coherent package. Wolfram-Alpha, too, seems to provide a more human, and possibly humane, search experience. Rather than 1.2 million pages returned, based on a natural language query, you get one response page, filled with data.
My fear, though, is that these types of search platforms, with their curated answers, may make our students less critical consumers of media and websites. It's unclear, for instance, as I watch the information flow by about the National Writing Project where exactly the information came from, and so I have difficulty determining the reliability of the source. At the end, I see pointers to Wikipedia, fotopedia, Google and YouTube. But these are a far cry from citations.
Have you used either Wolfram-Alpha or Qwiki for your own work? With your students as they conducted research? If so, I'd love to hear more about your experience.
Comments
Every search engine is a curation system. The larger issue is how do we filter all of this curated information. I guess I am being pretty obvious here, but it seems to me that we are all learners in this new world and students are only some behind most teachers. The epistemology here gets pretty damned weird: who knows what for how long and how well. And more. What I want to see is search devices whose algorithms self adapt based upon the history and needs both conscious and unconscious behaviors.
Yes, you're right, Terry: every search engine is a curation system. And I think what's also true is that search platforms are now attempting to filter curated information in various ways beyond simply returning web pages. So thanks for bringing up this "larger issue."
With regard to your notion of a search device that self adapts based on consicous behaviors, I think that's the Holy Grail for the Googles of the world. Unfortunately, marketers and advertisers are also playing a big role in this attempt to analyze and understand our online and offline behaviors. I heard an interesting Fresh Air episode yesterday called "How Companies are Defining Your Worth Online" in which Terry Gross interviewed Communications scholar Joseph Turow. It's worth a listen.
Thanks, Paul. I think that "follow the money" has become my mantra anymore. Google is all about ads and Facebook is all about selling data and LinkdIn is the buying and selling of collegiality set to the drum of a game. Gotta make sure that profile completion bar is filled up, right. Klout is a miserable arbiter of my worth as is Google Analytics as are grades in the classroom. We live in an educational era where assessment has trumped feedback as an institutional value. Fortunately, informal and 'sidewise' institutions and cultural values are pushing back in ways that don't even bother to disrupt. They supplant. They muscle aside. The collective (that is the same as the mob but with other connotations) rules more and more of our bright attention while assessment begins to fade like a dark dream, barely remembered and certainly not believed. You know the collectives I am talking about: Ravelry for knitters, WOW for gamers, Pinterest for the Etsy in all of us.
In fact I would love to be able to filter the folks that Turow studies and I would love to do it at will. Occupy Double-Click anyone?