我們還是得存些東西在腦袋裡，而不是「雲端」◎Annie Murphy Paul @anniemurphypaul（2013.06.21） Daniel 翻譯

我們還是得存些東西在腦袋裡，而不是「雲端」◎Annie Murphy Paul @anniemurphypaul（2013.06.21） Daniel 翻譯

http://ideas.time.com/2013/06/21/we-still-need-information-stored-in-our-heads-not-in-the-cloud/

 

We Still Need Information Stored in Our Heads, Not ‘in the Cloud’

 

Computer are great for information that won't change, but a brain is better at connecting facts with other facts and acquiring layers of meaning

電腦適合儲存不變的資訊，但大腦更適合連結不同事實並擷取多層次的意涵

 

科技究竟是讓我們變得比以前笨還是聰明？作家卡爾(Nicholas Carr)在其2011年著作《網路讓我們變笨？：數位科技正在改變我們的大腦、思考與閱讀行為》裡，深刻描述變笨的狀況。作家Clive Thompson則將在今秋透過他的書《Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better》，勉強做反面的答辯。

我認為：科技能使我們變聰明，也能使我們變笨，而我們必需建立一些日常行為的準則，以確保科技是在增進我們的思維，而非阻礙它。目前備受爭議的其中一個議題是，到底哪些資訊我們該記在腦袋裡，又哪些資訊其實可以留在「雲端」、需要時再取用？

2005年，康州大學研究人員，要一群七年級學生去閱讀一個詳細介紹西北太平洋樹章魚（學名：Octopus paxarbolis）的網站；網頁中詳盡地描述了這個生物的求偶儀式、食性及枝葉茂密的棲息地。學生們必須運用過去所學的邏輯分析法，評估該網站及其刊載資訊的可信度。

這群學生們答案呢？樹章魚是可信的！除了一名學生外，他們全都認為這個網站「非常可信」。康州大學報社為此下了新聞標題：「研究發現孩童需要更好的線上學習技能」，此外它更引述了康州大學教育學教授暨新知識力研究實驗室副主任Don Leu的話，慨嘆學校對網路閱讀的指導「少得可憐」。

這起事件很不對勁，並不只是因為Leu及同事們刻意捏造了這個樹章魚的謊言，來測試受測者在網路世界中的知識判別能力。荒謬之處還包括了「這些學童所需要的（或所有我們的孩子所需要的）是在學校中能學到網路學習技巧」這種見解。Leu所調查的這群七年級學童們真正需要的東西其實很明顯，就是知識：只要具備海棲動物生物學的一些基本概念，他們就會知道這個網站根本是個天大的謊言（比方說，這個網站說「樹章魚的天敵是大腳怪北美野人」）。

但這個在教育學專業領域逐漸壯大的學派，可不這麼想。這股新勢力擁護的是「新知識力」，亦即所謂的「21世紀能力」、「數位知識力」、或其它各種聽起來很時髦的概念。在他們眼中，技能勝過知識，發展「知識力」遠比學習知識內容重要，因為現在所有知識都可以Google得到，根本不值得記誦。然而，如果學生或工作者不具備廣泛實際的世界知識，縱使最成熟的數位知識力技巧，也無法幫他們探索世界。非營利組織公民至上（CitizenshipFirst）執行長Rober Pondiscio（曾擔任名五年級老師）表示：「當我們把科技帶進教室、強調這些新『知識力』的時候，我們覺得是在重塑校園，使它更貼近現實世界。但我們如果僅僅著重於知識傳遞的機制，而非知識內容本身的話，那根本是在給孩子幫倒忙」。

確實，認知科學的研究證據，也質疑「技能可以擺脫知識而獨立」這種說法。維州大學心理學教授Dan Willingham，在學習法的研究上，具領導地位。他寫道：「過去三十年來的研究，指向一個科學上不容質疑的結論：思考需要知識。不只因為你得要有東西才能思考，同時也因為教師們最在乎的能力（如：推理及解決問題等批判性思考進程），其實和儲存在長期記憶中（非環境中馬上得到）的真正知識有密切關聯。

換言之，能夠Google到黑色星期二的日期，並不表示你了解經濟大恐慌發生的原因，也不表示你能夠拿它和我們最近的經濟衰退做比較。沒錯，今日的學生及明日的工作者，勢必需要創新、合作與評估的能力——數位知識力熱衷者所熱愛的三項「21世紀技能」。但是，它們和創造這些能力的知識，卻是分不開的。創新，得具備先前的知識；合作，得貢獻知識給團隊；評估，則須比較新知與過去已精通的知識。

以下是數位世界中思考的兩個原則：

第一，獲取目標領域之基底知識。這樣的基底為發展技能提供必要的基礎，且這種知識來源不能外包給搜尋引擎。

第二，善用電腦不變的記憶以及大腦精妙的記憶。電腦很適合儲存不變的資訊，例如下週約會的日期與時間；電腦不像你我的大腦，它不會把下午3點的約會錯記成下午2點。但是當我們須要以有趣又有用的方式變化記憶時，大腦會是更好的選擇。大腦，能夠連結其它的事實與想法，能夠獲取層次綿延的意涵，更能夠在累積的知識與經驗中沉浸一陣子，然後醞釀出更豐富的心智成果。

 

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Is technology making us stupid — or smarter than we’ve ever been? Author Nicholas Carr memorably made the case for the former in his 2010 book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. This fall we’ll have a rejoinder of sorts from writer Clive Thompson, with his book Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better.

 

My own take: technology can make us smarter or more stupid, and we need to develop a set of principles to guide our everyday behavior and make sure that tech is improving and not impeding our mental processes. One of the big questions being debated today is, What kind of information do we need to have stored in our heads, and what kind can we leave “in the cloud,” to be accessed as necessary?

In 2005, researchers at the University of Connecticut asked a group of seventh-graders to read a website full of information about the Pacific Northwest tree octopus, or Octopus paxarbolis. The Web page described the creature’s mating rituals, preferred diet and leafy habitat in precise detail. Applying an analytical model they’d learned, the students evaluated the trustworthiness of the site and the information it offered.

Their judgment? The tree octopus was legit. All but one of the pupils rated the website as “very credible.” The headline of the university’s press release read, “Researchers Find Kids Need Better Online Academic Skills,” and it quoted Don Leu, professor of education at the University of Connecticut and co-director of its New Literacies Research Lab, lamenting that classroom instruction in online reading is “woefully lacking.”

There’s something wrong with this picture, and it’s not just that the arboreal octopus is, of course, a fiction, presented by Leu and his colleagues to probe their subjects’ Internet savvy. The other fable here is the notion that the main thing these kids need — what all our kids really need — is to learn online skills in school. It would seem clear that what Leu’s seventh-graders really require is knowledge: some basic familiarity with the biology of sea-dwelling creatures that would have tipped them off that the website was a whopper (say, when it explained that the tree octopus’s natural predator is the sasquatch).

But that’s not how an increasingly powerful faction within education sees the matter. They are the champions of “new literacies” — or “21st century skills” or “digital literacy” or a number of other faddish-sounding concepts. In their view, skills trump knowledge, developing “literacies” is more important than learning mere content, and all facts are now Google-able and therefore unworthy of committing to memory. But even the most sophisticated digital-literacy skills won’t help students and workers navigate the world if they don’t have a broad base of knowledge about how the world actually operates. “When we fill our classrooms with technology and emphasize these new ‘literacies,’ we feel like we’re reinventing schools to be more relevant,” says Robert Pondiscio, executive director of the nonprofit organization CitizenshipFirst (and a former fifth-grade teacher). “But if you focus on the delivery mechanism and not the content, you’re doing kids a disservice.”

Indeed, evidence from cognitive science challenges the notion that skills can exist independent of factual knowledge. Dan Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, is a leading expert on how students learn. “Data from the last thirty years leads to a conclusion that is not scientifically challengeable: thinking well requires knowing facts, and that’s true not only because you need something to think about,” Willingham has written. “The very processes that teachers care about most — critical thinking processes such as reasoning and problem solving — are intimately intertwined with factual knowledge that is stored in long-term memory (not just found in the environment).”

In other words, just because you can Google the date of Black Tuesday doesn’t mean you understand why the Great Depression happened or how it compares to our recent economic slump. There is no doubt that the students of today, and the workers of tomorrow, will need to innovate, collaborate and evaluate, to name three of the “21st century skills” so dear to digital-literacy enthusiasts. But such skills can’t be separated from the knowledge that gives rise to them. To innovate, you have to know what came before. To collaborate, you have to contribute knowledge to the joint venture. And to evaluate, you have to compare new information against knowledge you’ve already mastered.

So here’s a principle for thinking in a digital world, in two parts:

First, acquire a base of fact knowledge in any domain in which you want to perform well

This base supplies the essential foundation for building skills, and it can’t be outsourced to a search engine.

Second, take advantage of computers’ invariant memory and also the brain’s elaborative memory

Computers are great when you want to store information that shouldn’t change — say, the date and time of that appointment next week. A computer (unlike your brain, or mine) won’t misremember the time of the appointment as 3 p.m. instead of 2 p.m. But brains are the superior choice when you want information to change, in interesting and useful ways: to connect up with other facts and ideas, to acquire successive layers of meaning, to steep for a while in your accumulated knowledge and experience and so produce a richer mental brew.

 

This article is from the Brilliant Report, a weekly newsletter written by Paul.

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2013/06/21/we-still-need-information-stored-in-our-heads-not-in-the-cloud/