Person: Searching for People and Organizations (White & Yellow Pages)

Communities Resolving Our Problems: the basic idea
[SUP: Sharing Problems]	[THINK: Guidance]	[LEAP: Solving Problems]

Person: Searching for People and Organizations

"Topic Expert" databases
Yellow Pages: Institutions, Businesses, Corporations
White Pages: Phone, Postal Service, Email, Locator Maps
Web Messaging Systems

Interaction is at the heart of the learning process. Though reading or viewing works of others with a questioning attitude is important, seeking interaction with people is generally the best first step in problem solving. Too often the average searcher starts at the wrong end of the information pyramid by searching among web sites or books and articles instead of reaching out for people who have more expertise. There are four general categories of ways to reach experts: topic-expert databases; white pages; yellow pages; and email conferences and chat systems. It is not just that experts may have a piece of data in their heads that searchers might not be able to find quickly on their own, but rather the expert can be asked to apply a larger intelligence and question the question. Is answering the specific question going to yield the answer needed? Maybe the question is leading down the wrong path. It can be easier to "think outside the box" in interaction with those who have a different and hopefully deeper perspective.

For educators, such capacity raises other concerns. Any contact between younger children and strangers is best done with an adult as the middle person or go-between and with older children might best be handled with direct adult supervision.

Sub-Sections

Topic Expert

You can ask an expert. A diverse array of systems of online experts has arisen to support direct contact with the world's experts on some topic. Some sites are free and some require a fee for any access or more in-depth access. Some are generalist in nature, taking on all questions on all subjects, and others are content or subject based. Some are "live" and others require some time before answers emerge.

Web Messaging

Web messaging includes email conferences, chat and other systems.

There are tens of thousands of electronic mail conferences on tens of thousands of topics. When you search the email of these conferences, you not only retrieve stored messages, but you also retrieve the email address of the person writing on your topic for future contact. There are two distinct forms for email conferences, newsgroups and mailing lists (such as LISTSERVs). Newsgroups are databases of email that require the searcher to initiate a visit. LISTSERV based systems require the searcher to join an email conference system and then the email from the group is automatically delivered the searcher's email address. Email conferences do not require that participants be online at the same time. In contrast, Chat systems do require real-time participation. If email messaging is needed, you will have to ask participants in Chat systems for their messaging address as it is not provided automatically.

Chat rooms can be interesting and helpful, but remember that public chat sites are most often communities of strangers to you and often to each other. Like all other forms of interaction among ideas encountered between strangers, there is a need to validate or compare these ideas with data from other sources. Further, do not plan classroom chat use unless you have available a private chat room and have total control over entry to the room for the students and classrooms that will be involved.

Yellow Pages: Institutions, Businesses, Corporations, Organizations, 800#s

Yellow pages provide contact information for organizations and businesses.

White Pages: Phone, Email, Location (Map) Addresses

White page systems focus on contact information for individuals. Increasingly white, yellow page and locator systems are merging.

Launch parent frame (if not visible) Pub. 1.2.95 Updating now: December 22, 2003 [Up] [Houghton's Web Office] [Pageauthor Houghton@wcu.edu]