Google Effect

One of the things that edtech people often hear coming from keynotes is that Google is a great saviour for the inquiring minds of our students. Students are now able to ask a wide range of questions and get results (that still have to be filtered mind you) that they can use almost right away.

Of course, there are always those that will argue the flip side. I found this article that argues that Google is making people dumber because people are using it as a shortcut.

I think these nay sayers are the same type that suggested that the calculator is making student dumber. Granted, many students use these tools as a crutch, but that might be more a result of how the technology is integrated and modeled to the students. So when you have people thinking that the Google box is the only way to navigate to sites (darn you GUI creators who thought that hiding the address bar was a good idea), they are going to model that to their students. In the end, it should come down to what you are wanting students to know. Some of the facts that are being Googled, should be committed to memory – perhaps from sheer repetition – but others don’t need to be. I’m reminded of a comment that was attributed to Einstein that he never remembered his own phone number because he could always look it up in the phone book.