1631303 บริการอ้างอิงและสารสนเทศ
Reference and Information Services
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บทความประจำสัปดาห์
บทความที่1-1

Title : Situated cognition versus traditional cognitive theories of learning.
Author: Moore, Beverly J. Source: Education (Chula Vista, Calif.) v. 119 no1 (Fall 1998) p. 161-71 ISSN: 0013-1172

In the nearly indissoluble relationship between theories of cognition and attempts to understand the processes of learning there is an easy assimilation into the fray over sovereignty. Who controls knowledge? Is knowledge 'beat into our heads or are we led to discoveries? Does learning occur as a consequence of intention, or is it serendipitously assimilated in our experience? What are the goals of individual versus social theory in relation to the learner? Is the aim of the learning experience to develop more pragmatic returns, or to nurture the abstract and symbolic mind? These questions revolve on a fundamental division between ideologies that alternately place either the individual or the community as primary agents and beneficiaries of cognitive development and learning. The dialogue of dichotomies between cognitive and situative theory--individual versus community, reductionistic versus systems approaches, inductive versus deductive--lends prima facie weight to the dialectical foundation of situative theory. Is it fruitful to have the dialectic stop with situative theory, short of the fundamental rift? Is our effort to understand learning doomed to take a back seat as we battle over territorial nomenclauture? Why not continue the dialogue through a more complete synthesis?

Dewey's pragmatic preoccupation with citizenship and his insistence on the context of quotidian reality to develop that citizenship are balanced by his acclamation of subjective imagination, and of voluntary and reflective attention in achieving from external custom and suggestion (Dewey, 1956/1990, pp. 144-146). Dewey values learning as a participatory and sustaining function within the society, while recognizing the individual essence and vitality of a learner's cognition. Recent theory flows from Dewey's moderate expression of social dominion through more individualistic perspectives into a Marxist view of local and global culture as integral to the very possibility of individual knowledge and identify (Lave and Wenger, 1991, p. 98-115).

CONCEPTIONS OF ABILITYTraditional interpretations consider ability as a function of intelligence, a faculty peculiar to individuals. A 1921 consensus (Snyderman and Rothman, 1988), contemporary with Dewey's work, describes a (then) commonly accepted definition of intelligence "as mental adaptation to changing environmental stimuli...sometimes called the capacity to learn" (p.43). The schism between cognitive and situative theories evolves as each attempts to confiscate a portion of that definition and declare it complete. It is reminiscent of the blind men and the elephant; no one of them can see the whole thing, yet each gropes about and adamantly asserts to know 'what it is. None surmises the truth.

Cognitive theory tends to assess ability where traditional psychological theory has always begun, noting it originates in individual mental processes. It is primarily Piagetian, inductive, and anchored to biology. Situative theory is more Vygotskian, deductive, and genetic; emergent through the developing relationships in which individuals play a part. Yet, akin to the Piagetian development of self, cognitive theory appears to be growing from an egocentric perception of ability toward a more interactive process of assimilation and accommodation with the environment. Robert Sternberg (19xx) identifies "three main loci of intelligence--within the individual, ...within the environment, and...within the interaction between the individual and the environment" (p.3). He then chooses to break these down into myriad subsets of theory. James Greeno (1997) calls this sort of reductionist molecularizing a "commitment to the factoring assumption" (p.7), which he feels typifies the cognitive approach. Yet nearly half the models Sternberg outlines address the individual as a component of social, occupational, and cultural environments. This is a huge step from the historically brain-centered bias of early cognitive psychology. Shari Tishman, in her work Thinking Dispositions and Intellectual Character (1994) carries this a step further by moving away from a. cold conception of good thinking as being primarily a matter of ability, and towards a warmer view that explains the mainspring of effective thinking as including motivation, cognitive sensitivities, inclination, and other factors that aren't captured by the construct of 'thinking skills "(p.3).

บทความที่1-2

Title : MSN programs a new definition of consumer online.

Author: O'Leary, Mick. Source: Online (Weston, Conn.) v. 21 (May/June 1997) p. 94-6 ISSN: 0146-5422

The history of consumer online is a search for identity, often sought by mimicking some other well-established medium. Originally it was time-sharing, in which consumers were expected to dial in and carry on tasks similar to those done by businesses during the day. Later came the transactional model (Prodigy's hope), in which consumers would shop and bank by computer. More recently there was the magazine model, popular on America Online and CompuServe, in which online periodicals copied print magazines, down to their graphics and page layouts. The perilous state of consumer online today demonstrates that none of these online adaptations has been successful, at least in their bottom line.

Now comes the latest borrowed medium, created by a consumer service that has dabbled, with mixed results, in the others. The medium is television, and the service is the new Microsoft Network (MSN), reincarnated on the Web from its proprietary service origins.

Microsoft's sudden announcement in December 1995 that MSN was moving to the Web had high shock value, especially since the company had confidently introduced it as a proprietary service only a few months earlier. But the more significant news is not MSN's new home on the Web, but its rebirth as an entertainment medium, modeled on TV, with a dash of movie flavor mixed in.

MICROSOFT TAKES ON THE WEBThe new MSN is actually part of Microsoft's greater Internet strategy, which is based on the "If you can't lick em, join 'em" philosophy. Microsoft is developing a spectrum of Internet-enabling products, to take advantage of the Web craze and to diversify from its PC software foundations. A big part of the strategy is to morph itself into an entertainment company, creating content for, among other outlets, MSN.

Microsoft's entertainment wing, Microsoft Multimedia Productions, is already a major supplier of content to MSN. The idea is to deliver the entertainment values of TV via the multimedia capabilities of the Web, with the added values of interactivity and user choice. MSN, as Microsoft's preeminent consumer product and the first venue for its entertainment programming, is the flagship in this grand scheme.

Does it all work? It depends on what you're comparing it to. Compared to "real" TV, video, and movies, MSN is a feeble copy. Compared to conventional consumer online services, including the first generation MSN, it is a stunning advance. Ultimately the judgment is the bottom line, but those results won't be in for some time.

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEWThe new MSN was introduced with great fanfare in late 1996. Although Web-based, it is not completely platform-independent. MSN requires Windows 95, and existing MSN subscribers were sent a CD with additional software. It is not just a renovation of the old MSN; it is a completely new service that unfurls major innovations in interface and content.

MSN is unlike anything you've ever seen online before. It is the biggest step in consumer online interface since the innovative but short-lived WOW! service from CompuServe. It uses a modified version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, known as the Program Viewer (TV terminology abounds in MSN). The Program Viewer strips away all but the most essential browser commands, and shrinks them until they are barely visible. It's as if the mouse is a TV remote, instead of a computer input device.

The look and feel is also more like TV or a movie screen than the Web. There is a lot of black, white, and gray, but rather than being dull, this projects a dramatic, cinematic effect --you feel like you are at the movies. It is intensely multimedia, with much audio and animation, and numerous snatches of video, especially in the entertainment sections. Overall, the effect is impressive, appealing, and very stylish. The production values (more TV jargon!) are highly professional. You have the feeling that you are not working with a computer, but instead with some sort of new, hybrid device.

Then there are the downsides, most of which are associated with the large amounts of data that these multimedia effects require. MSN is often very slow, especially in media-intensive departments. During evening prime time, it can virtually stop. I'm running MSN on a 200-MHz Pentium with 32 MB of RAM, a 28.8Kbps modem, and a graphics accelerator card. I hate to think what would happen on weaker machines. (Whatever happens, it will occur very, very slowly.).

MSN, or at least my version, is fragile, with occasional freeze-ups, though it's hard to know whether to blame it on MSN or Windows 95, both likely suspects. Technically adept users will also be dismayed by the feature-poor Program Viewer.

MSN's content is a mixture of typical consumer online standards and some genuinely new material. There are four basic departments: Essentials--a set of reference and feature areas; Communicate--for communications functions; Find--for searching MSN and the Internet; and OnStage--the venue for entertainment, features, and news. The first three, underneath the flashy MSN cover, are conventional consumer online services. The fourth, OnStage, is full of online innovations.

ONSTAGEOnStage has over two dozen "shows" on six different "channels" (TV jargon is thickest in OnStage). This "programming" does in fact reflect TV, especially cable, in its mixture of pop culture features, episodic dramas, documentaries, and news--all aimed at a range of targeted audiences.

News is provided by MSNBC, and includes Personal Page, a customizable daily news service. There are a few online soaps, with continuing story lines and weekly episodes. Other shows cover lifestyles, women's interests, teen interests, entertainment, and games. Some are sound and graphics-oriented, while others resemble online magazines, with text and magazine-style layout.

The overall quality is respectable, and again resembles TV, with a lot of light but forgettable stuff and some good material. MSNBC is a solid news show, and Slate, the opinion magazine, is often penetrating. And unlike a lot of cable, OnStage isn't too edgy or trashy. MSN is eminently respectable and child-safe.

ESSENTIALSEssentials contains a variety of reference, informational, and transactional departments, all of which are consumer online standards. Travel, automobiles, and movies are prominent. Plaza, the transactional area, has fewer than a dozen shops. The meager reference department has the Encarta encyclopedia, a thesaurus, a dictionary, and a general full-text reference database from Information Access Company. Pro CD provides people and business look-up databases.

The personal finance section has portfolio management, company news, stock quotes and charts, and summary market reports. The finance section is noteworthy as well for what it lacks, and what this shows about the new MSN direction. The original MSN had a large and impressive list of business information contributors, including Disclosure, Profound, Information Access Company, Commerce Clearing-house, Thomson MarketEdge, and many others. Few of these appear in the new MSN, whose reference/research stance has been sharply curtailed. It has been pointed out that third-party information producers don't like the revenue levels they're asked to accept under the low, flatrate pricing that MSN is pushing. For that reason, perhaps, MSN relies heavily on homemade content.

COMMUNICATECommunicate houses recognizable services like email, chat, and forums. There are dozens of forums, representing a large but typical set of hobby and personal interest topics. Forums use bulletin board software from the old MSN, which is very good, especially for organizing and displaying message topics and threads. The Internet Community connects into Internet newsgroups.

FINDFind contains search tools for MSN content and the Internet at large. The Word section provides simple keyword searching across MSN's proprietary content. Complete Internet searching is provided by links to Infoseek, Excite, Alta Vista, and Deja News. The Subject section offers a Yahoo!-style catalog of MSN sections and Web sites. It is a hierarchical subject classification of hundreds of sites, with short descriptive annotations and links.

For all the fuss Microsoft made about integrating MSN into the Internet, MSN's focus remains MSN. Links to outside Web sites are scattered throughout, but they are not strongly emphasized, and there are fewer of them than in America Online or CompuServe. It is even difficult to get out of the Program Viewer to pull up the standard Internet Explorer browser. It's as if Microsoft, having been forced to adapt to the Web, still grudgingly holds it at arm's length.

THE FUTURE OF CONSUMER ONLINE?MSN is defining a new model for consumer online, based on the entertainment-oriented content and visual style of television. Like previous consumer online attempts to emulate other media, there are no assurances of success because, like the earlier models, the online version falls short of the original in key respects. As attractive and well-designed as MSN is, it offers far fewer choices, is much slower, and is far more complicated than "real" broadcast TV and video. MSN's online value-addeds are greater user control and a degree of interactivity, but their drawing power awaits proof.

MSN is not only an entertainment medium, but also an Internet provider, where it can claim some advantages. The primary one is price-competitiveness. MSN's most attractive price plan is $19.95 per month for unlimited MSN and Internet access. Lower volume users can choose to pay $6.95 per month and $2.50 per hour after five hours; those who already have Internet access can pay $6.95 per month to get access to MSN proprietary content. MSN also depends upon advertising, which is low-key in quantity and prominence.

MSN's flat rate puts it in the ballpark with plain vanilla Internet providers, where MSN can tout its proprietary content and its Web access features, which some users will find attractive. Power Internet users won't want anything to do with MSN, but the technically challenged may like the simplicities of the Program Viewer and the Web site subject guide...once they come to terms with Windows 95, of course.

The fate of MSN's new model may not be known for some time. Microsoft has announced that it will pour hundreds of millions of dollars into MSN over the next few years, with no expectation of profit. (Take that AOL, CompuServe, and Prodigy!) The appeal of MSN's multimedia-intensive product may grow in the future, as wider bandwidth technologies come on and make it faster. But the rest of the world isn't standing around watching Microsoft. WebTV, for example, is a cheap and intriguing information technology. And if you catch yourself saying that something that simple can't leapfrog to the forefront, just whisper the word "fax" into the wind. Hang on, then, for a long trial for consumer online's latest identity.

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