Navigating Information Overload - 2019 update

See in this article

I studied history in college, then spent three years in the US Army, in the Intelligence branch. In both cases I was learning to use best available information to support decisions of leaders.

I began to build a library of information in the 1970s, while leading a single tutor/mentor program in Chicago. I expanded this effort in 1993 when I formed the Tutor/Mentor Connection, and then in 1998 when I began to build the library on the Internet.

Visit this article and find links to all sections of the library.

We now have a new Mayor in Chicago, meaning new people will be seeking solutions to old problems.

Helping kids living in high poverty move safely through school and into adult live and jobs, will be one of the focus areas.

Four-part strategy click here

My hope is that the Mayor will point her team to the web library I've been building, and to the four-part strategy described in this visual.  What makes my library unique is that while some of the information is from my own experiences, most of the sites I point to, have their own web libraries. Thus, each site opens to hundreds, if not thousands, of additional resources.

With all of this information, how can normal people find time to do more than scratch the surface? I think this is one of the major problems facing the world. Too much information. Too few using it.

Below is what I wrote about this in a 2012 article.

Often I learn to understand what I've been doing by seeing how others present similar ideas. Over the past few years I've followed many people who share ideas in a variety of blogs, web sites, videos, social media sites, etc. I've pointed to many on my own blog and web site and even collect some of the links in my web library.

Over the past year I've been learning about Massive open Online Courses (MOOCS). Rather than trying to give you a description of my own, I encourage you to view this video then visit this CHANGE.MOOC.CA site.



Without knowing it, I've been creating a platform of information and ideas that is waiting for a team of facilitators to turn it into a MOOC. This video describes many of the strategies of the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC and Tutor/Mentor Connection. It shows a way to connect people from different places and different networks in on-going learning that they can use to understand poverty and its impact on youth, families and communities, and to learn strategies working in some places that could be applied in other places.

I've used this graphic often to illustrate the "village" of people who need to be involved in this on-going learning process and in strategies that help kids in poverty areas have more of the support systems needed to move through school and into adult responsibilities.

In several past blog articles I've written about "silos" where groups focus on their own issues, with their own ideas, and their own limited membership. Chicago and other big cities are full of silos. Chicago has more than 200 different youth serving organizations offering various forms of volunteer-based tutoring and/or mentoring in non-school hours.

Each one is forced to be a "silo" because of how they compete for dollars.

Yet, each also has common needs. Connecting together in a MOOC type of process, and engaging volunteers, alumni, business people, philanthropists, etc. might build shared commitment and new strategies for generating and distributing these resources, leading to constantly improving programs in all parts of an urban area.

Until we find ways to connect youth, volunteers, leaders, donors and policy makers from each of these different organizations and from business, religion, philanthropy, higher education,government, media, etc. we'll never have consistent strategies reaching young people in all poverty neighborhoods with best-in-world strategies learned from this world of ideas that can be found through the Internet.

I point to more than 2000 different web sites from my own sites...and these point to other web sites with even greater levels of information. It's the information overload that David Comer talks about in this video about MOOCs.

While I record more than 8000 visitors and 150,000 page views on my own web sites this is just a fraction of the people who need to be involved in this on-going learning. While I have the vision, I don't yet have the ability to organize and lead a MOOC that connects big-city stakeholders in on-going learning that draws from all of this information in the ways the video above describes.

Yet, if you look at the structure of the courses on CHANGE.MOOC, perhaps the blog I've written since 2005 could be considered a MOOC! It's open to anyone in the world. In needs more facilitators.

New organizations keep sprouting up in Chicago with new sponsors and new donors putting up hundreds of thousands of dollars. They are reinventing the wheel and the cost of accumulating all of this information and building a network of people to share it will be overwhelming.

-------------- end 2012 article --------

Since 2012 I've  participated in other cMOOCs and one group that has has a longer-lasting connectivity is a Connected Learning #CLMOOC group that started in 2013 and continues in 2019.

Here's an article that I wrote about this group in late December 2018.

So, what's next?

This picture shows how I constantly am trying to connect people in my network with information in my web library. 

I'd love to find a collection of similar graphics, picturing the Mayor, the Governor, CEOs of business and philanthropy, doing the same thing.  They don't need to point to my library, if the sites they point to have links to it.  But they do need to be encouraging the growth of this information base, as a source of understanding  and solving complex problems.

If you'd like to know more about what I'm describing, let's connect.  I'm on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIN. You can introduce yourself in the comments section.