What the Semantic Web can do for us. The Semantic Web can make it easier for us to look for resources on the web. What we are facing today is a web that provides too many resources when we are perhaps trying to narrow down our inquiry into an intelligent focus. According to Ohler, “the goal is to reduce the time that we spend searching and sifting, so that we can spend more time thinking and participating”. The Semantic Web is also called Web 3.0. One of the things that Ohler emphasizes is that it is very hard to determine now whether the information that we are getting is in fact a credible source or not. He feels that Web 3.0 would be relevant towards changing this problem. A “knowbot”, which is a specialized computer program, would actually be in charge of looking at the specific area that you want researched. Then it would gather all the relevant data associated with your search. This would make it easier for one to gather information, because there would be more time to interact with colleagues or fellow students, on projects.
There are basically three phases that would be necessary for Web 3.0 to work. The first would be to create intelligent tags for the data that are uniform within all areas. The second one, would be, to group the tags into an ontology (Ohler 15). The third would be to share ontologies or databases.
Web 3.0 is not in our distant future, because already it has been used to capture information regarding the U.S. Census. It would behoove us to implement Web 3.0 so that the process of gathering information could be facilitated. As educators it would improve our capacity to organize ourselves, because it would allow us to interact on a whole other level; where communication barriers are pulled down to allow a higher level of learning.
Ohler, states that possibilities exists that Web 3.0 could be intrusive, due to the fact that there would be access to personal information that would then “skyrocket”. As with everything that is new and fresh it is necessary to take the appropriate precautions to safeguard the privacy of the individuals that will use Web 3.0.
Ohler, J. Power and Peril of Web 3.0. It's More Than Just Semantics. (2010).
Learning and Leading with Technology, 14-17.
Retrieved. October 6, 20ll. http://www.iste.org/store/my-virtual-products.aspx
Virginia,
ReplyDeleteThe idea of Web 3.0 is relevant to education, and any scholarly circle. With this digital age we have entered, there is a constant stream of new information. It is important to be able to access and decipher this new information, but it is crucial to determine the validity of the facts. Finding credible sources for any claims made is the basis to the curriculum on college campuses. If there are new programs that would allow greater ease in searching for quality information, this would be hugely beneficial for students. Already there are databases that compile information for students; JSTOR, thinkfinity, etc... If there could be an expansion of these databases to the wealth of information on the internet, ideas could be categorized as scholarly or opinion based.
The idea behind this is to determine the quality of a source, which is important for all students. In what ways as an educator could we implement this program to teach the idea of questioning sources? Would there be any drawbacks for students having the work done for them, in other words would students lose an aspect of education if they did not have to distinguish between good and bad sources?
Virginia,
ReplyDeleteI find myself running into the same problem you introduced in this blog. Just last week I was writing a research paper and I needed to find sources off a university library website. The fist time I tried I was too broad and I had too many sources but once i narrowed down my topic I did not have enough sources. I find myself spending too much time on finding my sources than analyzing the information I find. A website like 3.0 would help college students out completely to give reliable sources that are easier to find