Struggling with Technology

This is why we need to be ensure the presence of trained, certified, and professional information specialists (librarians) in our schools. Those professionals cannot be replaced by Google. Students need a deeper understanding of logic and rhetoric.

"As important as it is for students to expand their sense of community and learn to collaborate — it is more crucial that they learn how to sift thoughtfully through increasing amounts of information. The Internet presents a unique challenge to scholarship — many of the questions that once required extensive research can now be answered with 10-minute visits to Google. The issue now is distinguishing between rich resources and the online collection of surface facts, misinformation, and inexcusable lies that masquerade as the truth. It will be hard for our students to be thoughtful citizens without this ability to discern the useful from the irrelevant. This is especially clear during this election season. If they are never asked to practice dealing with this new onslaught of information, they will have to practice when the stakes are much higher."
from Matthew Kay's "Putting Technology in Its Place" -- OpEd piece, New York Times Opinion, October 12, 2008