The "Long Tail Effect" and its meaning for Education

The Long Tail

The Web 2.0 offers students and educators greater opportunity to find detailed and more comprehensive information about a specialized skill. With the ability to collaborate through digital means across geographical boundaries, students can now find mentors, whether that mentor is an individual expert or a group of collaborators (web 2.0 is now a mentor). The classroom can now go digital from the comforts of one’s own computer. Tied into this concept should be trend 9, “Social Learning Moves Toward Center Stage”. Students gain much more information by engaging their knowledge and skills through the use of study groups. Study group can also be seen as focus groups. These web 2.0 collaborations allow students the ability to participate. By directly participating in conversation and collaboration, students process the information more completely.

The classroom is primed and ready to dramatically redesign itself with the use of web 2.0. As teachers move from being the key master of knowledge to the digital navigator, students will be offered a unique opportunity to immerse and engage in learning anything about anything. The background knowledge I have at my disposal is microscopic compared to the useful information that is available. As I learn how to navigate the web and collaborate with others whose point of view and background is different than mine, my ability to share these navigational skills to my students increases. My overarching goal as an educator is to provide students the opportunity to engage the knowledge and information offered online. This does not mean that a computer is the ONLY tool necessary to learn. Students still need to manipulate the tangible world around them.

As I took in the information provided in Steve Hargadon’s slideshow, I thought about the direction our district is taking towards these innovations. I am sometimes surprised at the amount we spend on textbooks yet when we discuss purchasing laptops for our students, we balk at the price. I have a smartboard in my classroom but I’m still faced with the same restrictions using a conventional whiteboard. I teach and the students listen. Only one can use it at a time. Maybe they use a dry-erase board but they are certainly not diving in to content like they would if I gave them a smartphone or “ipad”. How much does a school spend on textbooks and other print for each child? What is the cost/benefit of a computer when we compare it to all of the other items we purchase? The faster we answer these questions, the faster we will be able to keep up with commercial marketers and their power of influence.

I looked up the Chris Anderson video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yku0GTrcuw explanation of the “long tail” and found one truism that helps make the case for this theory. What’s called a “power law”, an exponential event, is universal when discussing the distribution of events. Another key term that caught my ear was “bottleneck distribution” The first thing that came to mind was the “28 to 1 ratio” that is my class. One teacher for 28 students. Information and its application bottlenecks at me. I create a “very short tail”. In other words, information becomes less available if it has to pass through me. If I can teach students and offer them each the opportunity to seek out meaningful content, I’ve just offered them a new one on one ratio. The saying “If you give a person a fish, they eat for a day. If you teach them how to fish they can feed themselves”…or something like that.