tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425734.post113376971883499103..comments2023-08-21T05:11:40.272-07:00Comments on headspacej: Online Learning Communities: PerlMonkJeremyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01293317607000363396noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425734.post-1133920596360374172005-12-06T17:56:00.000-08:002005-12-06T17:56:00.000-08:00HA haha...don't ignore the "..less than..." part o...HA haha...don't ignore the "..less than..." part of that sentence.Jeremyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01293317607000363396noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425734.post-1133920531818019622005-12-06T17:55:00.000-08:002005-12-06T17:55:00.000-08:00"three hours" for a response from monks? More lik..."three hours" for a response from monks? More like 30 seconds. {grin}Randal L. Schwartzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15769772519087568807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425734.post-1133916993113941732005-12-06T16:56:00.000-08:002005-12-06T16:56:00.000-08:00A little thought experiment of the types of learni...A little thought experiment of the types of learning evident in 43 Things and the PerlMonks online community compared with the traditional education approach: <BR/><BR/>1. In university, 150 second-year students are taking a required web-development course. They've all had to buy two $80 textbooks, one of which covers Perl because the prof is a fan of the language. He's devoted two weeks to Perl and assigns a small, contrived Perl-based programming project. They'll get exposed to the information, but how many of those 150 students are going to value this learning as part of who they are becoming, and to what degree could this be considered authentic learning?<BR/><BR/>2. An experienced web developer needs to create some code to help him do a batch operation on a database-driven site. He's on a tight deadline and thinks Perl might be the right tool for the job, but he hasn't ever used it before. He finds the PerlMonk FAQs to make sure he's on the right track, then posts a request for help that gets a response from someone in the community with a solution in less than three hours. <BR/><BR/>3. A graphic designer is getting more complex requests from clients for web development projects requiring more than her basic html and graphic skills. A friend at work suggests that Perl can be very helpful for certain kinds of web programming tasks, so she goes to Google and types in "learn Perl". One of the results is the "Learn Perl" goal page in 43 Things and she reads the recommendations from people who want to learn and others who have already learned it. While reading, she sees that she might be better off learning a combination of PHP and MySQL for the kinds of projects she wants to work on, sending her in new directions. She's learning what she wants to do, and maybe even what she wants to be.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps these are oversimplified examples, but they're helping me conceptualize the relative value of these online communities in contrast to traditional views of education.Jeremyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01293317607000363396noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425734.post-1133899412611944082005-12-06T12:03:00.000-08:002005-12-06T12:03:00.000-08:00Thanks much for this note, Randal -- much apprecia...Thanks much for this note, Randal -- much appreciated. <BR/><BR/>My reference to Google's ranking was more about how social software like 43 Things (and most blogs, apparently) tends to get ranked up in Google because of the amount of interlinking going on. <BR/><BR/>Your point about the specific search query is spot-on, though. And there's something interesting about the contrast. Although PerlMonks is a much better place to go learn how to solve a specific problem in Perl, that 43 Things page probably isn't the worst place for beginners or dabblers to figure out if they should be learning it at all.Jeremyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01293317607000363396noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5425734.post-1133797134637359702005-12-05T07:38:00.000-08:002005-12-05T07:38:00.000-08:00I don't think that Google is that far off on the "...I don't think that Google is that far off on the "learn perl" results. Keep in mind that Google is a literal search (almost), not a semantic search. In my many years of reading and posting on monks, I've <I>rarely</I> seen the words "learn perl". The site is about learning, but like "don't talk about fight club", you don't keep saying the word "learn".<BR/><BR/>It would be a bit like searching for "united states", which would show the sites that talk about the country as a whole, but certainly not the sites that are located <I>within</I> the united states, because they never mention the name of the country.Randal L. Schwartzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15769772519087568807noreply@blogger.com