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I can still sing the theme song to Gilligan’s Island . I’m complaining, not bragging. Talk about obsolete and useless information. I also still know how to use the Microsoft Office 2003 version of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Also obsolete, useless, and truly frustrating knowledge since there is limited knowledge transfer to Office 2007. Sometime I wonder if all my experiences and knowledge are buried away somewhere in my memory banks. Perhaps I have never deleted anything. Unexpected recollections convince me that a multitude of memories remain. For example, I can remember and sing the theme songs to a host of TV shows from the era of Gilligan’s Island (watched in re-runs on the non-network channels when I was wasting away my youth). I haven’t watched TV with any regularity in 25 years but those songs remain. My knowledge of TV theme songs seems stable and long-lasting. In contrast, my knowledge of Microsoft Office programs is currently in transition. Much of my knowledge learned for the 03 version is useless in the 07 instantiation. Finding the pull-down menu for even something as basic as saving the document has changed. Right now these two sets of knowledge are in conflict. I still have the 03 Office programs on the laptop I use, but most of my university’s computers have been modernized (or ruined depending on one’s perspective). Sometimes I can’t perform seemingly simple tasks on any computer. There’s a crucial distinction between Office 03 and Gilligan’s Island. Soon I will forget how to use Office 03. I may, however, be doomed to hum Gilligan’s theme song forever. With the Microsoft Office products, I am replacing the knowledge. I am learning the new ways to save, change paragraph formatting, and add error bars to graphs. Each time I perform a task in the 07 version, I strengthen that new knowledge. When I strengthen the new knowledge, I gradually weaken the connection to the old information. My knowledge is updated by new experiences. The updating takes the form of changing the use of a retrieval cue. With those Microsoft Office products, the retrieval cues might be: How do I change the spacing between paragraphs? In Word 03, I had one response to that cue that involved using a pull down menu. In Word 07, the method of finding that dialogue box is quite different (and quite frustrating at this moment). As I re-use the same retrieval cue, I lose the ability to recall the items that were once associated with that cue. I suspect that when I finally master the updated programs, Microsoft will release a newer version and my hard-earned knowledge will once again be obsolete. Interference is one common explanation of forgetting. My transition from Microsoft 03 to Microsoft 07 is a form of interference known as retroactive interference – new usage of knowledge makes it harder to recall the old information connected to the knowledge. I experience the same interference with students’ names. As I learn the names of my current students, remembering the names of students from previous terms becomes more difficult. The difficulty is much greater if I re-use names (how many Jennifers have I known in 20 years of teaching?). For students with more unique names, I can remember them and their names more easily for longer periods of time because there is less interference – that is, I haven’t re-used those names as frequently. Back to Gilligan’s Island, from which I may never be rescued. I’ve gained no new knowledge during the intervening years that interferes with my ability to recall that theme song. With the right retrieval cue, such as the tune or the first line, I’ll start singing that song ( Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale ). Some obsolete knowledge, such as how to perform tasks in Office 03, gets replaced by new knowledge. Some useful knowledge, such as students’ names, also gets replaced (much to my dismay). But some obsolete knowledge sticks around, never gets updated, and becomes the fluff in my head. So is everything in my head somewhere? Maybe. The knowledge may be there waiting for the right retrieval cue. When that cue gets re-used and strongly connected to new information, however, the old knowledge may become impossible to retrieve. Unfortunately, nothing is going to replace Gilligan.

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Gilligan’s Island and Microsoft Office 03: Useless Fluff in My Head