when was the last time you were on a campus?

Post #371,308 by boxley 2/13/13 8:52:29 AM Reply	when was the last time you were on a campus? The level of stupid was appalling at the one I was at last year and that was the professors Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 57 years. meep
Post #371,318 by Another Scott 2/13/13 11:00:19 AM Reply	There are bad code monkeys, too, but coding is still imp't.
Post #371,510 by crazy 2/16/13 8:39:09 AM Reply	Yeah, it's BAD I hear stories every day from M about her classmates and the occasional idiot teacher. The boy, who is WAY smarter than me, agrees. And he is part of it. As he explained it to me: Kids today don't need to know anything, just just need to know how to google it. Really, this surface knowledge availability has destroyed a huge segment of kid's ability to internalize knowledge and then develop new relationships between pieces of knowledge, because it is all tidbits of immediate satisfaction with no in depth analysis. Most people don't bother going to a 2nd page when they are "researching" something, they hover the google top links, find the easiest to read, and give it a shot. 2 or 3 clicks later that are done. And those are the SMART ones!!!!!!
Post #371,512 by Another Scott 2/16/13 9:14:00 AM Reply	Meh. Same as it ever was. Who was it? Homer? One of those other dead Greek guys? Anyway, there was this school of thought centuries ago that reading and writing were bad because it meant that educated people no longer had to memorize epic poems and stories and be able to recite them in an instant. Sure, that was a loss, but the benefits of writing and reading hugely outweigh that loss. I remember when there were the first controversies about allowing calculators in math classes. Teachers eventually realized that calculators are a tool - students need to know how to apply them to a problem. Calculators don't magically give answers to arbitrary problems. (Anyone who thinks they do should sit in front of a Desmos screen for half an hour - https://www.desmos.com/calculator ) Having Google available is a great boon for mankind. But it means that teachers have to be smarter about presenting lectures and teaching. Yes, simply asking students to regurgitate names and dates is no longer an important skill (if you're willing to depend on ubiquitous internet access). And Google makes it easier to cheat, so teachers have to figure out ways to combat that. But an important part of an education is knowing how to find existing facts and information. We don't get very far if we're constantly reinventing the wheel. And it's more important than ever to develop critical thinking skills. Google makes it easy to get a wide variety of thoughts and opinions - one needs to figure out how to sift it all out. The world changes - film at 11:00. The educational system needed to adapt to handheld calculators, PCs, and now Teh Google. Those advances aren't necessarily making us stupider, but educators and students need to change to recognize their benefits (and limitations). My $0.02. Cheers, Scott.
Post #371,518 by folkert 2/16/13 10:25:16 AM Reply	I have to tell you... Back in 1999, I was worried about Google eliminating the need to Systems Administrators... (real ones not Microsoft Certified drones) Now I view it as a tool to tell me what to look for, what the actual cause of my issue is, what idiots came up with what I'm dealing with and how to/what tools to use o combat it. Its made my job easier on the bare metal side of things.... and allows me to devote time to doing INANE PCI COMPLIANCE SHIT. But, truly it makes my life easier now... allows me to devote time resources and critical thinking on things that aren't yet solved. It also causes the bane of my existence, fixing up things from people trying to fix things by rote, because it worked for someone and not understanding why it does or doesn't apply. -- greg@gregfolkert.net PGP key 1024D/B524687C 2003-08-05 Fingerprint: E1D3 E3D7 5850 957E FED0 2B3A ED66 6971 B524 687C

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