Slide09

Many of us have a desire to appeal to experts -- maybe we consider ourselves having expertise in our fields How many of you carry an title of experts? How do we maintain that status? But we all have domains of knowledge expertise, etc -- but what does it mean to carry that as a title? And who is an expert in technology, such a fast moving field?

And we hope for sources, entities to put our trust in, so we can take their expertise at face value. We want more than Colbert’s “Truthiness” we want the real bona fide thing.

Do you recognize this face? I am taking a risk here using a reference to US pop culture. You may not given it is from a US television show in the late 1960s… Hogan’s Heroes. Here is my disclaimer (play sound file). When else but in the wacky 1970s would they conceive of a comedy featuring prisoners in a Nazi prison camp?.

As an interesting sideline, when I was checking my information on Hogan’s Heroes (it has been a while since I’ve seen an episode), I turned to that despicable mess of information known as Wikipedia, and wow, did I learn some interesting things.

Some of the actors, including Werner Klemperer (Klink), John Banner (Schultz), Robert Clary (LeBeau) were Jews who had fled the Nazis during World War II. Clary and Banner actually spent time in a Nazi concentration camp. Werner Klemperer (Klink) was a Jewish refugee from Hitler's Germany. During the show's production, he insisted that Hogan always win over his Nazi captors. He defended his playing a Nazi by claiming, "I am an actor. If I can play Richard III, I can play a Nazi.”

I asked library experts among NMC members about what “trusted references” they would use to research the background of TV actors - these include reference books such as “Encyclopedia of Television” and "Television Characters” -- which sell for more than $200 or subscription databaes services such as the Gale Group

www.amazon.com/Television-Characters-Profiles-1947-2004/d...
www.galegroup.com/BiographyRC/
worldcat.org/oclc/19942611&referer=brief_results
worldcat.org/oclc/4884623&referer=brief_results

How much is expertness worth? In this case, is Wikipedia “good enough”?

“I believe that WikiPedia is probably a pretty good source for items like this because it is fed by dedicated fans who care deeply about the topic AND because the information is obscure but isn't controversial. Compare with an article comparing technologies (where various corporations have a financial interest), or an article about a sensitive subject such as child sexual abuse or current politics.” said JQ Johnson, University of Oregon

But more trivia- actor Robert Crane was dies of mysterious circumstances, most think foul play, in an apartment complex less than a mile from my home.
www.franksreelreviews.com/shorttakes/crane.htm

So why would the Australia Flexible Learning Framework pay out good money to bring in someone who is not an “expert”? That’s a question for them! But I am not here to depart pearls of truth handed down to me form the mountain- I am hear to ask questions, to stir things up… So, I like to remind myself, like the words of Shultz “I Know Nothing” - but not like his reasons (to avoid responsibility), but just in my own honesty that I do not encapsulate expert-iness like a fixed quantity inside of me -- I am in a network that provides that expert-iness.

And I am wandering down this tangent path for not specific purpose- but maybe to illustrate how I approach everything in a web like method, seeking linkages, or sometimes just curious wanderings, and along the way finding great things just by serendipity.