Google is destroying education

report in the Times will probably come as no surprise to many.

My wife lectured at London University for many years and was even spotting this trend years ago.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article3182091.ece


Earl

 

[estwig]

No disagree, in the nicest possible way.

Before the interweb and Google there were books, why should the printed word be any truer than the digital word???

Any information however it is presented, should be treated with caution until it's validity can be verified. This has always been the case for anyone with an inquisitive and skeptical mind and the emergence of the interweb makes no difference.

 

In a word Keith Plagurism and passing creative work off as ones own.

Also the lack of interaction with other humans.



Earl

 

[RayB]

I'm too busy reading a book to comment on this interweb stuff

 

[stugster]

In a word Keith Plagurism and passing creative work off as ones own.

Earl

I used to copy text out of books all the time at school.

Sorry Mrs Patterson!

 

I used to copy text out of books all the time at school.

Sorry Mrs Patterson!

Go to the back of the class that boy.

but at least you had to pick up a pen and read what you copied.

now its cut,paste,print job done.

Earl

 

[RayB]

I used to copy text out of books all the time at school.

All my mates copied my work.







They failed too

 

All my mates copied my work.







They failed too

when I was at school I sat next to my pal who was the school brainiac.

came second in French,even though the only French I know is "Waterloo Station"

Earl

 

[Cornish Steve]

Things change, and there are always pros and cons to that. The Internet brings an incredible wealth of knowledge to the student with great scope for more in-depth learning - and great scope for plagiarism (although most universities use some powerful online services that search for plagiarism).

The other problem is the credibility of information accessed over the Internet. The most frequently cited, of course, are the spurious entries for Wikipedia although this is way over-blown. It's the job of teachers to teach students how to recognise solid and credible references and how to avoid spurious data.

Frankly, teachers shouldn't be teaching in a "do this, do that" fashion. To be effective, they should be interacting with students, following up on work they submit, and ensuring they "get it". It's difficult to cheat in a transparent and interactive learning environment.

Personally, I'm all for the Internet. It is revolutionising the learning experience.

 

Personally, I'm all for the Internet. It is revolutionising the learning experience.

Agree for those who want to learn ,but not so for those that just want to pass exams.?

Earl

 

The internet is only one thing from many which have changed our lifestyle radically - as with everything like this, some will struggle and others will reap huge benefits. The trick is to try to fall into the second camp.

On a slightly similar theme, I was out today to see a 73yo lady to get her geared up and onto the internet. she will be going to classes to learn computers next month and wants the complete works. Never touched a PC in her life - but not a bit daunted to try it. Embrace or get left sitting !!!

(Want a good word put in Earl? )

 

[An Oasis]

In a word Keith Plagurism and passing creative work off as ones own.

Also the lack of interaction with other humans.Earl

Newbie!!!!

That's been going on for yonks. The education system has no respect from any quarter, as does politics, as do banks, as do doctors... The king is dead long live the ****ing king.

The world is changing, the boundaries that existed as models have been eroded and don't really exist any more in any concrete mindset, cast in tablets of stone idiocy and thank **** for that all that out moded crap. The problem people have is that there are no new boundaries to take their place, we are in a state of intellectual flux and most people being sheep are seriously worried because they can no longer make 2+2=4 with an ease, now making conclusion requires knowledge, skill and flair.

BTW just for anyone reading... I spent 16 year in H.E. & F.E and I know what a farce it really has become. Funding has been continually cut, study hours depleted, resources cut back as far as possible, year on year increase in paper work in order to pander to central governments dictates in order to justify some new piece of crap that they needed to monitor. Your kids don't get education these days they get a lecturer who pushes the paper first with a mind on how little they can actually spend in order to get the kids through the course and then with what little energy they have left they try to enthuse.

 

On a slightly similar theme, I was out today to see a 73yo lady to get her geared up and onto the internet. she will be going to classes to learn computers next month and wants the complete works. Never touched a PC in her life - but not a bit daunted to try it. Embrace or get left sitting !!!

Fantastic, that's the sort of thing I love to see and hear about. Good on her!

 

[RieOrg]

I think it opens up a world of information that many may not know even exists. It may be an easy way to cheat via plagiarism and such like but surely that makes it an easy way to obtain information. If students are going to cheat, they're going to cheat! Be it copying from books or via online source. The only one's they are cheating are themselves and the end results will show this in the end.

 

Most kids want to pass there exams ,cutting and pasting does not require more than a cursory glance at the content.

There are thousands of web companies that will sell ready made essay's to kids.At least copying from books involves actually reading the subject.

The only time the results show is when they arrive at university unable to spell there name.I wonder how many people under forty know what logarithms are.?

Earl

 

[glencooley.com]

There is an interesting paradigm in all of this if you take a step back from the schooling side and look at a real world side where someone searches for and answer, example or how to and gets the answer they need (this is especially prevelant in IT/Programming) then ok this plagerism has additional benefits it means that we can focus on other areas to expand our knowledge or give back to the knowledge pool.

If we look at knowledge as a shared pool some people sip others just stop by when they are thirsty and others dive right in and say the water is lovely.

To me if we can short cut a few things to allow us to focus on the bigger better or unanswered problems then its all a good thing.

Cheating in school is always going to happen but the underlying issue is not cheating in your french homework because the likelihood is that you arent going to use that french any ways. The truth is you cheat at french but dont take it as a degree subject...

I have always found the academic yard stick not a true representation of knowledge, inteligance or common sense it is just a metric to give a KPI on learning levels. Knowledge application are really where it should be focusing. If we were to take a more positive approach to honing a persons abilities as apposed to enforcing a ciriculum on everybody then i think we would be building a stronger set of innovators and thinkers.

Enough ramble now.....

 

Great post Glen.

Earl

 

[adventurelife]

It is both destroying and enhancing at the same time. If you are a working class or middle class kid in the western world with the Internet in your house the temptation to use for short cuts is very , very strong. Bl**dy hell we were all teenagers once.

The act of reading , absorbing , and taken notes and analyzing from a book to me acts as a more long lasting form of education that trains the mind.

Yes I know that can be done on the Internet as well, but the temptation for the average 14 year old is to take short cuts and the net gives him that ability. It also reduces the attention span as there is always something else to look at.

On the other hand the same 14 year old in a remote town in Africa which has a Internet cafe and he gets on it a couple of hours a day has the route to an education that he could only dream off.

The paradox is the Internet is both the best educational resource know to man so far and also a source of destroying proven educational techniques that have been proven to work in the past.

 

[glencooley.com]

It is both destroying and enhancing at the same time. If you are a working class or middle class kid in the western world with the Internet in your house the temptation to use it as a short cuts is very , very strong. Bl**dy hell we were all teenagers once.

The act of reading , absorbing , and taken notes and analyzing from a book to me acts as a more long lasting form of education that trains the mind.

Yes I know that can be done on the Internet as well, but the temptation for the average 14 year old is to take short cuts and the net gives him that ability. It also reduces the attention span as there is always something else to look at.

On the other hand the same 14 year old in a remote town in Africa which has a Internet cafe and he gets on it a couple of hours a day has the route to an education that he could only dream off.

The paradox is the Internet is both the best educational resource know to man so far and also source of destroying proven educational techniques that have been proven to work in the past.

some good points!

I dont think its been proven to work just that the best try hard and rise to the top.

No matter when or where if people want to achieve they will and others wont.

The problem is by creating a culture where the learning restrains your ability to challenge what you have been told then innovation is surpressed.

Now if we were to take all the right answers and challenge them then we get a better understanding of the subject and a way to thing about a given thing without the preconception that something is right because we "learned it".

In an ever changing world and the influx of technology why not use it to get past some of the things we dont want to learn or need and focus on the stuff that makes a difference.

Please understand i am not devalueing education more focusing on ways the better extract better from the system and more importantly the students in it.

 

[adventurelife]

some good points!

I dont think its been proven to work just that the best try hard and rise to the top.

No matter when or where if people want to achieve they will and others wont.

The problem is by creating a culture where the learning restrains your ability to challenge what you have been told then innovation is surpressed.

Now if we were to take all the right answers and challenge them then we get a better understanding of the subject and a way to thing about a given thing without the preconception that something is right because we "learned it".

In an ever changing world and the influx of technology why not use it to get past some of the things we dont want to learn or need and focus on the stuff that makes a difference.

Please understand i am not devalueing education more focusing on ways the better extract better from the system and more importantly the students in it.

Totally agree except in order to challenge in a methodical and benefical way the basics need to be in place. Society would not go far wrong if we could just get the basics of education to a high standard in each and every kid.

Natural selection would take care after that but having a much higher base level is good for everyone.

 

[JustOneUK]

hmmmm.... I'd have thought XBox (microsoft) and playstation do more harm to education than Google.

just my ¾ cent

 

Totally agree except in order to challenge in a methodical and benefical way the basics need to be in place. Society would not go far wrong if we could just get the basics of education to a high standard in each and every kid.

Natural selection would take care after that but having a much higher base level is good for everyone.

Too true if you don't know what a button is,you won't know what to press.

Earl

 

[Alice3537]

Most kids want to pass there exams ,cutting and pasting does not require more than a cursory glance at the content.

Must be all the teachers give it if so many kids are doing it - at the school I went to, my teacher would have known if my writing style (and intellectual ability ) had altered overnight.

(I'm under 40 and whilst I couldn't tell you now what a logarithm is, I was taught about them. Listened, assimilated, realised I'd never use 'em and forgot it all!)

 

[glencooley.com]

Totally agree except in order to challenge in a methodical and benefical way the basics need to be in place. Society would not go far wrong if we could just get the basics of education to a high standard in each and every kid.

Natural selection would take care after that but having a much higher base level is good for everyone.

again i agree but the basics arent focused around the social skills nor the history to learn from but are generalised. Now this in its self is not a bad thing but being deadly serious what aspects of education actually better prepare and motivate us? forgetting teenage drama and the "doss" mentality I was lucky enough to have lived in a few places while i was growing up and the difference in teaching is vast. We can bench mark till the cows come home but the real issue is we hold back the bright people by not letting them focus on the subjects they excel at or could innovate in.

I truely believe to get to our eutopia we will need to actually look at each person and what they enjoy and can do and develop that.

History often points to certain places being generalised to specific things, england class and master craftsmen for example.

I guess my point is that i am a geek (not academically) but a geek none the less. I just feel that some of the problems we face as a society are far more reaching than some of the nonsense we are taught. We have change issues on a global scale that will take years to fix or work with, we have years of carbon (nano) technology to work with and we have a point were quantum physics is rewritting the physics we were taught at school.

Education is subjective the reason why is because some people can be taught and some can learn and thats the difference. For example I struggled at school academically not because i wasnt capable i just wasnt interested and we moved alot from here to hawaii and back plus other places.

I guess what i am trying to say is that education (reading writing and rithmatic) are the basics and need to be taught the rest is quite frankly is wasted time. We are at a point in humanity where far larger issues than rock formations need to be learned or that an active verb is acting upon.

The problems we as a global society face; need sorting. What we need are a new generation of thinkers. We need people not put off by failure or impossibilities but will look beyond and try to fix it.

There is a short fall in what I should learn and what i need.

I guess the bright people make the canny people commercialise and the no hopers do........

When society picks the curriculum then I am all it but until then I think that that benchmarking against a set of ideals is wrong.

 

I think the system needs to be able to channel kids as early as possible as I believe enthusiasm is the biggest educator available.

I spent 90% of my school time having to learn thing I was not in the slightest bit interested in and have probably never used in my adult work life.

As Glen says the 3 r's are essential as they open the door to what ever avenue a child wants to take,but under the present system and from my own experience I would say that maybe 70% of education is wasted.

Earl

 

[Alice3537]

I think the system needs to be able to channel kids as early as possible as I believe enthusiasm is the biggest educator available.

I spent 90% of my school time having to learn thing I was not in the slightest bit interested in and have probably never used in my adult work life.

As Glen says the 3 r's are essential as they open the door to what ever avenue a child wants to take,but under the present system and from my own experience I would say that maybe 70% of education is wasted.

Earl

Seems to me, given your %'s nothing's really changed!!

 

[directmarketingadvice]

I wonder, do people in the UK read and write more than they did 10 years ago?

I'd suggest they probably do, thanks to email and the internet (and, of course, that Rowling woman).

When I was a school, success was all about the ability to memorise things (strangely, the teachers never thought to teach us memory techniques - which tells you how stupid it all was).

If education was to shift its focus from memorisation to thinking skills and the practical application of ideas then, IMO, that's good news.

Steve

 

I'd suggest they probably do, thanks to email and the internet (and, of course, that Rowling woman).

Not sure having an expert knowledge of wizards has many applications in 21st century Britain.:|


Earl

 

I agree totally btw - the 'basic' education is totally up the left nowadays. I am sick of going into shops, etc, to see young men/women with no basic numeracy skills. I am sick of their thinking that the 'text talk' way of spelling is actually the correct way. Nothing annoys me more.

I am 37 years old, so no where near Earls generation, but I was not allowed a calculator until 3rd year, even having to use the old 'log books' etc - and I think that helped my basic mathematical/logic skills for the rest of my life. I learnt to count using my brain instead of my fingers.

Now, take this a step further, introducing Google (not them specifically, more the internet in general). What are they going to lose now?

- Numeracy will definitely not improve
- Grammar is definitely going to suffer
- Research skills will suffer, as everything is at the fingertips, although some may say it will simply 'change'
- Social/Inter-personal skills will suffer. Everyone knows kids who now 'cyber-chat' to their mates on Bebo, MSN, etc, rather than actually go visit them
- Sports/Fitness will suffer as they stay indoors rather than go to clubs
- Geography might pick up in that they will know where more places are, but will they be interested in the culture of the countries, or the amazing sights there?
- Discipline is completely out the window, even now
etc

Google (or at least the internet) is changing the next generation dramatically, and where it leads is not somewhere I want to think about


But, and it is a big but (leaving the next thought aside there ), the internet is definitely imparting levels of knowledge that were impossible before. People who would never have ventured into new 'territory' can now explore safely and learn a great deal in short timescales. The kiddies now are amazing in some ways, and they really know their technology. They sit on Bebo, etc, but they are well versed in exactly how to utilise the internet to their advantage, how to get interest generated, how to promote themselves in a way that can be applied the world over. This, plus their basic technology skills makes them a fearsome bunch in the business world of the future. So now I'm thinking, I'd better get a move on, as I will be blown out of the water soon...

Swings in roundabouts - and what we probably have to learn is that WE are the different ones - THEY are the modern ones.

 

[Gillie]

Speaking as a mother whose brats are presently in this wonderful education system of ours, and seeing it from the close and up front perspective, its only been the last 6/7 years that teachers now expect some form of access to the internet.

Its a very useful resource. Yes perhaps it means they don't head off to the library anymore as they can sit home but that the only real effect that I can see from my own personal viewpoint.

The older two are heading in to GCSE's and A Levels in a month or so's time, and with the now advent of coursework for exams, the internet has proved very useful, especially for middle one doing his Art GCSE ... it means he has immediate access to the various pieces he has to study, it means studying longer and harder in my opinion as he does not have to sit in a library pouring over references books he is not allowed to remove.

In some cases yes, education has suffered, but lets not forget that those kids we moan at for not being able to count and know the difference between text speak and normal English, they didn't know the difference in my day ... you always had the few who were not willing to learn etc, so little has changed in that respect.

When results come out, there is the constant comparisons that come out about 'in my day' etc. Learn to accept that times move on, and with it standards change, if you personally are not happy and have kids, its up to you to instil a little more education in them, but don't blast the internet, its a very useful good tool when used correctly!

Oh yes, and my brats do speak and spell in English whilst writing or typing coursework, they have the ability though to speak text talk on phones and msn, so it is possible!