2. Overcoming Prejudice
One of the more challenging parts of learning is being able to overcome our own
prejudices in order apply what we have learned. Not having an interest in what is
being presented, but still being able to focus and open minded to learn new
information.
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3. Let’s All Go to the Library
Early in my journey at the College of Western Idaho I was required to earn the research badges
for the library. This was a basic impromptu class to learn how to utilize the library resources on
and off campus.
4. Busy Work?
This is the kind of work that I generally find frustrating. It feels like busy work and a
waste of my time. I have been to a library. I already know how to look things up
online. Why do I need to watch presentations on doing it again?
5. Crushing It
One piece of the process was to earn the Website
Crusher Badge. The goal is to learn to identify
reliable resources online. How to tell if a site is
authoritative and something that has academic
legitimacy.
6. Sources are Important
The course gives examples of both good and bad sources. It goes in to
detail on simple ways to tell if a source is part of a commercially
biased organization that may compromise the information with bias.
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7. Government Information
More importantly the course also gives examples of how non-biased websites will
present information. How to determine if the data was supplied by the industry, or if
it was independently obtained. They offered suggestions to look for government
websites or government funded sites.
8. Searching…
All of this sounds like basic information,
and it is. It was significant to me because it
was not something I had ever considered
before. In the past I would just do a web
search for my topic, and look at the first
few results that came up.
Search Results from DuckDuckgo.com
9. New Ideas
I have learned how to apply this same information to
my life when looking for information. I strove to be
open minded and see if I could apply these principles
to my own life.
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10. Family Research
Recently, my father has been considering a new surgical procedure. It is not
something overly invasive, but it is a relatively new procedure that has been approved
by the FDA. He asked me if I could look in to it and offer any suggestions.
11. Searching Surgically
Searching for this surgery leads to
many results, but I began to notice a
trend among them. They all seemed to
be presented by biased sources. They
were opinions either given by the
manufacturer of the equipment, or
opinions given by doctors working for
the manufacturers.
Search Results from DuckDuckgo.com
12. Warning!
Right away I knew this was a red flag. There should be a good portion of
information from independent resources for any medical procedure being
considered.
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13. Results
A long term study done on the data from the last 20 years shows
that this procedure is no more efficacious than the original
procedure it is meant to replace. It also showed that while the
initial surgery is less invasive, there was a 20% higher chance
from the new technology that a second surgery will be needed.
I was eventually able to find a government hosted study done by
an independent doctor about the procedure. Their findings were
pretty eye opening.
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14. I Learned Something
By being open to learning something I did not think I needed to learn I was able to
find the reliable source that I needed. I was also able to apply that knowledge to my
personal life and make a recommendation to my father. It may be information that
saves his life, or at least saves him from making an uninformed decision.
