Simon Knight (member of the project’s international network) recently gave a talk at the Society of the Query No 2.

Click play to watch his talk, entitled ‘Finding Knowledge: What it means to ‘know’ in the Age of Search’

In this talk, Simon Knight invites the audience to consider their own educational experiences, and the nature of their access to external resources in examinations and other assessments. While some may have experienced open book or take home exams, these are certainly not commonplace. Denmark – which at school and university level has permitted some access to the internet during exams – thus stands in stark contrast to many people’s experience. There is a discordance here; on the one hand, the ubiquity of the ‘course book’ is in decline, and neither teachers or students find being sent to a single pre-moderated text acceptable now. Yet on the other hand, there is a nervousness about these new technologies in most countries and their suitability for educational purposes. This is perhaps in part due to concerns around the suitability of search engines as ‘epistemic tools’ – as informants that can reliably give us information. There are two sides to this issue, the biases and inadequacies of both the tools, and the users. This talk will discuss some search engine features within that framing of ‘epistemic tools’, highlighting why Simon Knight thinks it is a useful consideration, and its particular implication for educational contexts.