Sunday 29 July 2012

Streamlining Contents and Knowledge Gap

Now that I have many readers at this blog, what I can do now is streamline the contents and links, edit entries and move the contents to the next stage. At the next stage, what I can do is get the experts to come in and do a better searchable bog/website. If I put it up for hired work, then it is difficult to edit the contents. If I do things by myself, I can still edit the contents.

What readers can do is pick up sensitive information and write in the comments to alert me. Then I can come in and check the contents and edit. Once I am done editing the online contents, I can then move the contents for 'database' work, which allows for easier content searching (can also be more complicated too). It will take some time as I will need to ask around and also learn in the process. I will see what I can manage and find solutions.

Whatever it is, it must be easy for the schoolchildren to manage. I have the schoolchildren in mind as they will be the next generation taking over from me. The university students may not be that interested as they usually have decided on a major and history is not everybody's cup of tea. Most people don't like history and don't care about history, so it is better to think about the young schoolchildren or teenagers.

I don't have any data on what groups of young Malaysians are motivated to read blog, most importantly academic blogs like this one. If there is a cue to this question, then it is easy to pitch the contents.

For adult and elderly readers (age 50+), this blog may seem too busy for them or unimportant. But I will still write for them since the elderly is usually talking to or has a teenager by his/her side. I don't have any data to show how close teenagers are to the elderly family members and therefore gain in terms of reading material and sense of direction, but I take it that teenagers today do depend for a small part on the elderly to give them some direction. That's taking the positive perspective. Whether teenagers listen to and in turn benefit from information from their elderly, is something that needs a bit more research.

The science of knowledge transmittance from the elderly to the younger generation is a much ignored field of research. When we do research, we forget that younger humans will depend on parental support for supposedly useful information. The sort of information passed down from the elder to the younger generation is unknown. What aspects of information is handed down from generation to generation is unknown. How much aberrant information is passed down is also unknown. So, there is a lot of research and writing to do if we are to become a K-community, where the K stands for knowledge. How much a younger generation benefits from knowledge handed down through the generations is unknown. If we study some of the top-performers, we should have some idea of what is passed down from one generation to the next. If we then look at those who are unfortunate, then we sort of know what is missing - it could just be a knowledge gap. So we need to work on narrowing or closing this knowledge gap in order for our younger generation to benefit.