Not in my class
January 15th, 2008
The Argus is reporting a lecturer from the University of Brighton has criticized students for their heavy use of Google and Wikipedia.
Professor Tara Brabazon says that many university students are using both Google and Wikipedia as the first and only source when researching, thus taken things they find in the two as fact.
Professor Brabazon says:
“Too many students don’t use their own brains enough. We need to bring back the important values of research and analysis.”
What do you think? Should students be allowed to use Google and Wikipedia for research and to what extent?
January 16th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
As knowledge itself becomes more and more democratized it’s only natural that researchers and students of all kinds will turn to resources like wikipedia. I welcome the third order of order with open arms – knowledge is a shared human experience and has been in the control of too few for too long. As for students being lazy - that’s always going to happen no matter what lol. But there’ll always be plenty of wheat amongst the chaff.
If I was this professor I would be more worried about the negative impact of tv/media on our young minds than anything else.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:51 am
All valid points, but I’m not sure I agree with the impact of TV/media on young minds, without knowing how young you’re referring to. Otherwise, students, kids and even adults are exposed to the same things online and in some cases, these can be more harmful.
January 18th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I think TV is more harmful simply because it’s all so subliminal and passive. Kids sit there and just drink it in, they even have advertisements on kids channels like nickelodeon directly targeted at the way kids think, convincing them to eat terrible food, mostly. At least if they are online they are usually interacting in some way. I’m only speaking of educational resources here, of course – I realize the internet isn’t always a nice safe place for children, myspace is ample evidence of that. At least myspace wasn’t created to brainwash kids, whereas a lot of TV actually is. I find that more worrying.