A truism says that there are no dumb/stupid/bad questions. Most people don’t really believe it. There are those who are just afraid to ask questions, often because they think that asking the question reveals to others their ignorance and they will be considered dumb. Like FOMO, maybe there ought to be a name for it like FOAQ so that we can give this reaction/emotion a label.
There are perhaps some teachers and speakers who have FOAQ but I haven’t met many. Most enjoy questions as a sign that students or the audience are engaged and actively paying attention. Interviewees on podcast will often begin an answer by flattering the interviewer, saying “That’s a great question,” which gives the person a moment to think about their answer.
When I was starting out as a technical writer, I wrote computer manuals without really having any technical training. I had to talk to engineers or software developers who knew their product quite well, and one might say too well. It was so familiar to them that they couldn’t always explain how it worked and why. I’m sure I annoyed them because I kept asking questions until the answer made sense to me. It was something I got good at.
My job, if you will, was to ask questions, to interrogate, regardless of whether the person that I was asking thought my questions were good or dumb. When I asked a question, I might get a long answer that I didn’t fully understand. The I’d need to ask a follow-up question such as to have the person explain themselves differently. Thinking back, that’s how I did become technical, which is to say, I developed an understanding of technical systems and how they work but just as importantly, how to work with the people who create and maintain these systems and know a lot about them. I learned it not from textbooks but from asking questions.
Getting over one’s fear of asking questions is an essential technical skill. In a rather complex, technologically driven world that can be complex and incomprehensible, you have to take the risk to ask questions, even when you might not understand the answers. The risk is that you are revealing what you don’t understand; it would be much easier to nod and appear to understand even when you don’t. That gets you nowhere.
Taking the risk of asking questions often connects us to others. By asking and answering questions, people can sync up and understand how to speak to each other and converge on a common understanding.
Admitting you don’t know something is nothing to be embarrassed about but it’s like asking directions when you’re lost — some people just won’t do it. When you do, you’ll usually find that people are helpful and respond positively. Yes, some people are grumpy or their answers drip with condescension but that’s on them.
This all applies to maker educators as well who could be overwhelmed by how much they don’t know, especially technical knowledge. If educators are afraid of asking questions themselves, they can also be more afraid of students (or parents) asking them questions that they might not be able to answer.
If you are asked a technical question that you don’t know, acknowledge it. “That’s a good question,” copying podcast interviewees, is a good way to start your response. So is “I don’t know.” But add: “How do we answer that question?” It’s an opportunity to start a journey together.
I am amazed by the universal ability of librarians to field questions from many people without knowing what the answer is. Instead, they think of the sources that could be used to answer the question and they try to direct the questioner with the source. Librarians also help questioners reframe a question as well.
Which brings us to AI, another way of asking questions. Instead of typing in search terms, you ask a question or prompt in what could be a described as a conversational interface for learning — asking questions, getting answers and getting better at asking questions. It’s not unlike the Socratic dialogs. We get better at asking questions and finding answers to our own questions.
A local high school is using an AI tool called Packback for its writing classes. The teacher explained that the purpose of the tool is help students do research by forming prompts or questions. Students need to learn to ask better questions to be better writers. The other use of AI is to give them immediate feedback on writing assignments.
One tool I’m learning to use is NotebookLM from Google, based on their Gemini AI engine. The author Steven Johnson has been working with Google to build this product and he writes about how to use NotebookLM as a research tool. What’s different about NotebookLM in my view is that you choose the sources that the AI will work with. Unlike say ChatGPT, which is based on all kinds of information it has collected (or pirated) from the Internet, NotebookLM is looking at the specific data sources that you provide.
If your research material involves PDFs or Google Docs, you can create a notebook for the project you’re working on, and immediately add the relevant documents as sources. Within seconds, NotebookLM becomes a virtual research assistant, capable of answering questions or tracking down references based entirely on the source materials you’ve supplied.
— Steven Johnson (link)
Given a body of material, it generates questions using that material, which could be a way to explore the material. It’s different than a search engine that responds to a query by producing a summary of results that are extracted from the page that it links to. The search engine doesn’t analyze or synthesize the results, although it might extract a relevant paragraph or two. NotebookLM seems to go much further, as Johnson says, like a research assistant, suggesting how to research a topic.
I can think of several uses for this AI tool, all of them experiments. I wonder about loading up my book, “Free to Make,” as a source and see what kinds of questions that AI thinks it answers. I wonder if it’s possible to create a conversational interface with a book, as a way of engaging with its ideas.
I wonder about taking a body of technical content like articles on Arduino or Raspberry Pi or 3D printing, and see how one might use it to answer the kinds of technical questions that students might have. A kind of maker chatbot.
Lastly, I wonder how students who are developing a project might use NotebookLM to add sources as they do research online and see how it helps them clarify what they need to learn or do. Or perhaps they can ask questions of the body of information to see if they understand it. A project specific chatbot.
Last night, I was at the grand opening event for Maker Nexus, a makerspace in Sunnyvale. I was talking to a maker about artificial intelligence and I asked him how he thought makers might use it. He said that it could help them communicate their ideas. He said that many makers struggle to document their work or tell a story about it. Perhaps there’s a process of collecting notes and fragments, and then having AI help students shape it as a presentation or a document. It might also point out where they need to add more of a description or explanation.
AI has no fear. It doesn’t judge you. I guess it’s here to help.