Yesterday Google bought a website called Aardvark. It is a goofy name for a site but what is does is far from goofy. Vark.com is about helping people answer questions in a meaningful way based on knowledge not information. It’s a little bit hard to explain how it works. I did find this interesting video from the founder that I think will give you a good idea of why the site exists and how it can help facilitate knowledge.
Many of us have heard the expression “All I really needed to know I learned in Kindergarten”. This might be true but I learned a valuable lesson in Grade 11 Physics. I had the less than populr Mr Poplowski. I’d already had him as a teacher for Grade 9 Science. I loved science so his style wasn’t a problem for me. Not all my friends can say the same thing (right Laurie?).
It was in Mr. Poplowski’s class that we started to learned constants and formula’s. Some of these concepts were new to me and were not things I knew or expected to know on the future. As we were learning about Plancks constant or the like, I agonized over trying to remember this kind of knowledge. In one conversation with Mr. Poplowski I learned this which turned out to be an important lesson: I don’t need to know everything I just need to know where to find it!. I was in high school a long, long time ago. Well before the Internet.
Now in the Internet Age we have ready access to more information than ever before. The trick is no longer what you can remember but how can you synthesize original ideas for the information currently available? In life all tests are open book. We don’t have to remember the facts. We have to creatively apply known facts into unknown situations.
So this is a little thank you to Mr Poplowski for teaching me a lesson that I put in practice every day.