Filter bubbles

Recently there has been much debate about whether Indiana should continue to adopt the Common Core State Standards. I have fielded questions from many who are concerned about a “national” set of standards or believe a conspiracy exists to introduce our children to dangerous ideas. As I listened to these fine men and women, I thought to myself, “Where did they get this information?” I wondered if I have missed some critical piece of information over the past two years as I worked with our schools in the introduction of these standards. It was as if they were hearing totally different information—but how could that be? We all get our information from the same places, right? I realized very quickly that we had become victims of a filter bubble about the Common Core.Before I explain what filter bubbles are, I welcome you to review the standards yourself at http://www.corestandards.org/ and draw your own conclusions.Now, on to filter bubbles. Filter bubbles are created when we are only exposed to one kind of information. We think we are getting all of the facts, but we may be only hearing one side of the story. We can create our own filter bubbles, or they can be created for us. Google has created unintentional filter bubbles by customizing our search pages in order to target advertising. Facebook allows you to choose your news feeds so you only read what you are interested in reading. Is that good or bad?I appreciate the concerned people who asked me about Common Core because we were able to break through the filter bubble together. And I would invite you to consider how filter bubbles affect you. Although we cannot control the advertising model of Google or Facebook, we can be more aware of the filter bubbles that exist and try to break through them when we wonder, “Where did they get this information?” Below you will find a link to a terrific TedTalk on filter bubbles.