Unfortunately, there is an unhealthy tendency at the moment for people who ought to know better to abrogate their responsibilities as far as evaluating information and advice. There are three main manifestations of this.

Second, we now see Google's answer to this in the form of the Knol site. A knol is a neologism meaning unit of knowledge. The difference between the articles on the Knol site and those on Wikipedia is that the ones on the Knol site are credited with actual names. So that's much better, right?Well, not necessarily. I looked at three articles taken pretty much at random, except for the fact that two of them were "featured" (I have no idea what you have to do to get your article featured, by the way: I can find no information on that).

"The Decline of Women in Computer Science from 1940 to 1982" was written by one Jennifer Taylor. Her blog has nothing to do with that subject, and apart from having a job as a software engineer, her expertise lies in the fact that this article was written whilst she was working for her MA, which she achieved in 2005. Not only is the article now 3 years old, it is introduced with the comment that Taylor's tutor told her it needed more work, which she didn't have time to do. Is that supposed to be a recommendation?

Next, I looked at "Osteoporosis" by Nelson Watts. It seems to be a pretty good article, and Professor Watts appears to be genuinely qualified to write on the subject -- and with no sales axe to grind either. So, no bones (sorry!) there.

Finally, I looked up "Technology" and came across this article written by Alexey Tseitlin. Now, I've only skim-read the article, and it seems to be ok. However, what really puts me off is: 1. I have never heard of Alexey` Tseitlin. If this guy was an expert in this, I think I'd have heard about him in the last 30-odd years. Stephen Downes recently raised the same point about someone else. 2. His biography is not viewable, so nobody can even attempt to judge how qualified he is. 3. Aside from technology, he has also written about science, William Gibson, strategic planning and Exmoor, amongst other things. As far as I'm concerned, this is a good example of more being less: I am really not sure where his expertise lies. Nevertheless, I predict that there will be people who think that the author of a "knol" is an expert purely because he, she or Google says they are. It reminds me of some of the free article sites on the Web. In many, perhaps even all, someone becomes an expert automatically once they have had a certain number of articles published.

The third manifestation of this reliance on, or even deference to, "experts" is the adulation given to a very small number of so-called gurus, especially in the Web 2.0 sphere. Now, as soon as anyone says something like that, there is a chorus of people who assume that the motivation behind it is sour grapes. However, that is a red herring. Regardless of my motivation or supposed motivation, it cannot be healthy for otherwise intelligent people to assume that something is profound and true just because a particular person says it. I alluded to this sort of thing recently, when I said that I had watched some presentations in which the presenters came out with the most trite, banal statements, which were absolutely lapped up by what can only be described as a fawning crowd. At the end of the day, being a good entertainer and having charisma and showmanship skills and techniques does not make someone an expert -- or at least, not in the field of educational technology.

Now, there is a worrying answer to the issue of expertise, and a reassuring one. The worrying one is what is predicted for the future: Virtual assistants who can do your research for you. The video below will tell you more about developments in that area, but the issue I'm concerned about is this: How has the virtual avatar been programmed in terms of its search algorithm? Let's put it this way: Will it be possible for companies to "sponsor" virtual avatars, i.e., pay for the privilege of having their own products featured in the search results? It's already well-established that people's ability to research and evaluate search results on the Web are not exactly wonderful -- see, for example, Andrew Robitaille's post called "Google generation not so Google savvy", or Lisa Neal Gualtieri's article about information literacy in the realm of health issues.

The reassuring answer is that in many cases the real experts are not as far away as you might imagine. Perhaps they are in the school down the road, or on a Web site near you. I recently invited people to submit, via an online survey, details of any projects they were running which incorporated the use of blogs, wikis or any other Web 2.0 application. The result is a free ebook of 60 projects that can be used right "out of the box" or adapted to your own situation or the age group you teach. If you do nothing else this summer in preparation for the return to school, have a browse though this book and get inspired! The key point about the projects featured is that they were submitted by the people who had actually tried them out in practice -- in other words, the real experts. Who do you rely on for expertise in educational technology? Take 5 minutes to take our poll on the subject!

Terry Freedman is a U.K.-based education technology consultant and publishes the ICT in Education website at www.ictineducation.org, and the electronic newsletter “Computers in Classrooms

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