Cite your sources, presenters!
Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 08:55AM 79.48% of all statistics are made up on the spot. - John A. Paulos
Last week, a librarian came up to me during a break in a workshop I was giving for the Nassau (Long Island) BOCES and asked a disturbing question. I had been giving my "Technology? Skills Everyone Needs" talk, reeling off a number of statistics about the changing job market, economy, workforce skill set etc.. Sort of my version of "Did You Know"* that I've given for about 10 years. (Yes, it DOES get updated!)
Anyway, the librarian asked me why I did not cite the sources of my factoids on each of my slides. I quipped that I didn't because I made all the numbers up. But he certainly made me think. If we ask our students to cite and defend the
reliability of their research sources, why should we ask any less of our workshop presenters, our "experts?"
I've resolved to so for any startling info-bits I use to persuade others that kids need to "know how to use information and technology in order to solve problems and answer question" from now on. But I need some help...
I can track down where I found most of my information, but here are a few "facts" I can't seem to find the source for:
- 90% of what we know about the human brain has been discovered in the past 10 years.
- Auto mechanics in 1960 needed to master the equivalent of 600 pages of technical information. Today they need to know the equivalent of 600,000 pages of information.
- Only 2% of people are fired because of a lack of skills. The other 98% are fired for "personality conflicts."
- Kids get a chance to answer a question in school only once every 6 hours.
- Kids' TV watching is declining, but their "screen time" is going up.
OK, those are some of the major factoids I love, but just can't quite remember where I saw them documented. Any help out there? I am not using any numbers in my talks until I can cite the source - even if I have to make it up as well!
I'm giving the talk again on Wednesday. Hurry!
* One of the things I admire most about Fische and McLeod's "Did You Know" video is that they have a source for all their information. Way to go, guys!
Reader Comments (10)
I can't believe that this even needs to be suggested. Why aren't we doing this already? What a bunch of hypocrites if we are not.
I think the one about kids only getting to answer a question once every 6 hours comes from Prensky's:
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives. Digital Immigrants. In: On the Horizon. NCB University Press. Vol.9. No.5
Not sure though...need to verify.
Hi Jethro,
On retrospect, it does seem like a no-brainer. But take notice of all the stuff produced that does not cite any sources.
I am happy to held accountable for the things I say. I hope every adult is.
Thanks for the note,
Doug
Hi Carl,
That does seem like a Prensky quote. It seems I just ran across it within the last couple weeks. This drives me nuts. TIA if you find something.
Doug
This came up in one of our on-campus teacher workshops on ethics this year.
As we were discussing students' citing sources and images in their projects, one teacher raised her hand and pointed out that teachers don't do that in their own powerpoints that they prepare for their classes.
We ended up having an interesting discussion about how teachers can be better role models in the classroom in this regard.
Food for thought as well!
Similar to the one Q every six hours... In my school, assuming that there are at least ten minutes a period in which there is no time for students to talk...like say the first five minutes when a teacher is introducing something, or the last five when they are wrapping up, or a quiz, etc...if every student was to have an equal time to interact with me they would have 7 minutes of interaction with an adult each day -- 1.4 minutes per class (I did not count gym). So if one kid takes 3 minutes that cuts out another student's time. If I spent 3 minutes each with 11 kids that means there were 14 kids in the class that I don't get to interact with that day. If I sit down with a kid for five...oh my. I truly believe that if I had someone track my conversations there would be kids that I don't have conversations with for weeks at a time. Each kid might be able to answer a quick factual question every class, but there is simply not enough time for every kid to ask a question. I am not sure about the one question every six hours citation, but I belive it. The above numbers represent a class situation in which the entire class is set-up to be say a project based class where the kids are working freely. In a more traditional teacher directed class you can chop those numbers way down.
Hi Carolyn,
Called teaching by example, perhaps?
Good extension of the conversation. Thanks!
Doug
This might be one for your presentation. Just heard it to day in a Harvard Business School podcast:
80% of workers in the USA and Europe are know "knowledge" workers.
I found something similar to "90% of what we know about the human brain has been discovered in the past 10 years" which may have been altered in whatever source you found your quote. In Molitor, Graham "Would machines actually cope", Futures 35:7 (Sept. 2003) p. 773-778 is this line, "Starting out with emergence of our earliest hominid predecessors nearly four million years ago, over 90 percent of all we know about genetics today has been discovered and over the past 30 years!"
Hi Paul,
Given the math, the chance to ask a question seems pretty remote.
Thanks for the reality check! I appreciate the Knowledge Worker citation as well.
All the best,
Doug
Wonderful, Sue.
I wonder If that is the quote, but had gotten somehow garbled in the translation.
THANKS!
Doug