Some issues seem to keep resurfacing. The topic of whether students should now spend time learning what they can “learn to access” may be one such topic. I see this issue surfacing in a variety of ways. Cindy recently directed me to a link focused on “legalized cheating“. This article combined a discussion of ways students had discovered to cheat and alternative assessment approaches some educators have implemented to allow students to access such resources. In some ways, the suggested approaches would be similar to an “open book” exam and would be nothing new. From a different perspective, the opportunities being described are somewhat different than “open book” in that these approaches encourage students to take personal responsibility for locating the resources they would use to respond to course assignments.
You know this reminds me of? Do you think the minds behind “Who wants to be a millionaire” don’t know that some “phone a friend” contacts are attempting to use Google? Does it matter? Perhaps an Internet search should be a new life line? Why not just give the contestant say 20 seconds to use the Internet? Anyway …
This topic brings to mind a previous post in which I suggest that it is important to think carefully about this topic and to listen carefully to what individuals are advocating. When educators used to generate open book exams, I assume they created different kind of evaluation tasks. It would not make sense to evaluate understanding of terminology by allowing students to look up definitions in the text. While I automatically use Google to answer all kinds of simple questions that come up, I also see the value in knowing (meaning in my own memory) some things. For example, my professional conversations, even my teaching, requires that I know specialized vocabulary, relevant research from my field, etc. There is nothing wrong with admitting that I cannot remember a study, a name, etc. and searching for that information within a professional context, but a complete lack of internal knowledge would be a great liability.
So – I am for learning to “find information” and I am for “knowing” some things. I think we must just think more clearly about when each is appropriate.
