Some questions from Douglass Johnston via Cass McNutt:

They say that in 1900, we encountered 1000 pieces of significant information per six months. In 1960, it was within one week. Today, it’s within one hour. How much knowledge can we actually retain when our “seven plus or minus two” short-term memories have to constantly filter, direct and trash most of that data?

No doubt, we have an amazing amount of information coming at us (especially those of us who spend way too much of our time staring at a computer screen.) But I think the question is not so much what we can retain (as I would argue we don’t need to retain as much these days,) but rather how much knowledge can we find when we need it. Filter? Yes. Direct and redirect? Absolutely. Weed out? Without question. But I have to tell you, in many ways, if you’re reading this, you’re probably a part of my brain, just as del.icio.us and Bloglines and other tools are becoming. I don’t need to retain all of it, do I? And in fact, I usually retain the most relevant, most important information anyway because I make it more brain sticky by blogging it.

Johnston continues:

It also begs a question: which is better, the instant access to vast quanities [sic] of lower-quality (on average, that is) information, or the more difficult access to rarer quantities of high-quality information?

Beg it might, but the reality is that most of us (read: our students) are going to have to deal with the vast quantities of average information and, subsequently, become really skilled at vetting, synthesizing and recognizing patterns in what we find. And, I would argue that just about every post here is a result of that work, some more work than others. (I’m amazed, in fact, at just how much of my blog I can retain.)

If you read his whole post, you’ll also see that he refers going to the Web for answers as being lazy and that somehow having to find the answers through books or encyclopedias made the knowledge more memorable. I don’t agree. I see it as using the best tools available to get what you need. Sometimes that’s the Web, other times that’s a book. Neither will do you any good if you’re not skilled at using them.

Johnston asks a final question in his post:

Where, then, will that lead the education system, and how can it adjust to the notion of near-instantaneous research replacing memory?

Yeah…that’s the big one, isn’t it?

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