i’ll google it
DESCRIPTION
Powerpoint presentationTRANSCRIPT
Readings
Carr, Nicholas. (2008). “Is Google Making us Stupid?”, Atlantic.com. Washington D.C: The Atlantic.
Stross, Randall. (2008). “The Algorithm”. In Planet Google: how one company is transforming our lives (pp. 63-88). London: Atlantic Books.
Algorithms
An algorithm is a set of rules for solving a particular problem; it’s the essential building block used in constructing complex computer software (Stross, R. 2008).
Read more definitions on Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm
Class questions
How many of you use Google as your first choice?
How many of you use any of the competitors, such as Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo or Ask?
Class questions
Why do you use the preferred search engine?
Are you conscious about it, or do you just use it because everyone else does?
Do you use the word search engine or do you say googling?
Google has infiltrated our langage
Googling is defined as a transitive verb according to the dictionary and thesaurus Merriam Webster.
Link: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/googling
Is Google stupidifying?
Is Google making us stupid?
Carr argues that our brain has adapted to the way Google present information to us. Instead of reading in depth books and articles, we now scan literature quickly to find what we are looking for.
What does Google offer?
Class questions
Do you agree with Carr? Or do you think it’s the other way around?
By having all sorts of information accessible, we get to it easier; hence, we learn more?
Can the accessible information indeed wipe out some of the differences between those with a university degree, scholars and so on and people with no higher education?
Other useful online resources
John Battelle’s searchblog
John Battelle is a journalist as well as founder and chairman of Federated Media Publishing. He has been a visiting professor of journalism at UC Berkeley and also maintains Searchblog. The blog covers search, technology, and media.
Battelle is one of the original founders of Wired magazine
http://battellemedia.com
Other useful online resources
Search Engine Watch http://searchenginewatch.com
Search Engine Land http://searchengineland.com/
Search Engine Journal http://www.searchenginejournal.com/
Mashable, The social Media Guide http://mashable.com
Relevant readings
Battelle, John (September 2005). “The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of
Business and Transformed Our Culture”. New York: Portfolio Bauerlein, M. (2008). “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and
Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30)”. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin Brabazon, T. (2006).”The Google Effect: Googling, Blogging, Wikis and the Flattening of Expertise” In Libri (2006, vol.56, pp. 157-167). Germany Caufield, J. (2005) “Where Did Google Get Its Value?”. In Libraries and the Academy (Number 4,
October 2005, pp. 555-572).The Johns Hopkins University Press Conti, G. (2006). “Googling considered harmful” in New Security Paradigms Workshop archive (2006,
pp. 67-76) New York: ACM Del Corso, G. M. Gulli, A. Romani, F. (2005) ”Ranking a Stream of News” in International World Wide
Web Conference archive (2005, pp. 97-106). New York: ACM Evans, M. P. (2007) “Analysing Google rankings through search engine optimization data” in Internet
Research No. 1 (2007, pp. 21-37). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited Finkelstein, L. et al. (2001). “Placing search in context: the concept revisited” in International World
Wide Web Conference archive (2001, pp. 406-414). New York: ACM Goldberg, M. A. (2005) “Googling of Online Privacy: Gmail, Search-Engine Histories and the New
Frontier of Protecting Private Information on the Web”. In 9 Lewis & Clark Law Review (2005, pp. 249-262)
Goldman E. (2008) “Search Engine Bias and the Demise of Search Engine Utopianis”, In Spink, A. and Zimmer, M. (2008) Web Search . Berlin: Springer
Kilgarriff, A. (2007) “Googleology is Bad Science” in Computational Lingustics No. 1 (pp. 147-151) Ling, X. et al. (2008) “Can Chinese Web Pages Be Classified with English Data Source?” in
International World Wide Web Conference archive (2008, pp. 969-978). New York: ACM Liu, Y. et al (2008) ”BrowseRank: letting web users vote for page importance” in Annual ACM
Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval archive (2008, pp. 451-458) New York: ACM
Yen J.Y. et al. (2007) “The Comorbid Psychiatric Symptoms of Internet Addiction: Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)”, in Depression, Social Phobia, and Hostility. Journal of Adolescent Health, 41. Yoo, H.J. et al. (2004). “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Symptoms and Internet Addiction”. Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 58.