Fourth Friday's Lesson: Info-whelmed - the newest worry

     So I  spent the end of July and the beginning of August at a national conference and working with internationally recognized speakers in school division professional development.  These experiences have helped me feel a new feeling previously only mentioned by others on my Twitter feed.  I have been info-whelmed. 

    Info-whelmed is loosely defined as feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of information sources and resources put within your reach by digital technology.  In my limited experience, it is definitely akin to sheer overload and loss of focus on how to begin the task of sorting data you have received.  The context in which this is appearing on my Twitter feed is other educational professionals being concerned about how we help kids (and ourselves) deal with feeling info-whelmed.  I can attest to the reality of this feeling; after the 3rd day (of 4) at the national conference, my colleague and I both had trouble turning off our mobile devices and then sleeping because there was so much information presented.  We had become driven to capture ideas in our notes (which were digitized to boot), to resift information for working teams at school, and to annotate everything for either current or future use.  How to remember it all or even where to find it should we need it again?  Yikes!

     I came home and tried to apply this new working knowledge of infowhelm to my littlest learners at home.  They are bombarded daily with tons of information; statistics now say more is discovered in one day of their lives than has been discovered in all of mine!  And, yet, they seem to deal with it all just fine.  Oh, occasionally there is a "I just saw this on TV and have to have it!" moment, but usually they seem unfazed by all that information washing over them.  But I wonder and  worry.  I have seen fifth graders, more sophisticated learners, that I worked with on blogging this past school year begin to show signs of wear and tear just with their 100 co-bloggers on a weekly basis.  Not all, but some, seemed worn out or wide-eyed, overcome by all the information they could find.  My teachers do report that students are having a harder time figuring out "how to start" projects, essays, or presentations...because there are so many choices. 
   
How and when do we help our students (and own kids) work through or against becoming info-whelmed?  What skills does this require?  Are there "safety valve" type structures we can create in learning spaces to support kids who have access to infinite data but are constrained by the finite energy and focus resources of their human bodies?  How do we teach kids how to weed through the data and when to say "I have enough information for now"?  I am not sure.  However, I do know that the first step in working through a problem is to acknowledge and define it.  So info-whelm is real, it can be experienced by anyone with access to vast amounts of data, and seems to be more prevalent in this digital age.  I will keep you posted on solutions we find that work and stategies tried that do not, and I will try to be concise - as not to info-whelm you!