The More I Know, The Less I Understand

At least it certainly seems that way. As a teacher I have a perspective on students and research that the general public might lack. It all goes back to my own days in high school I guess. Back in the old days (late 80's early 90's) when I had a research paper or report to do the first thing I did (after a fair amount of procrastination) was to head to the library. Once there I poured through the card files to find the books I needed. After reading and digesting the information I found I wrote the paper. Ah, the good old days.

Fast forward to the first few years of the 21^st Century. With the advent of the internet (an innovation which really entered the scene during my last year of University), students now have access to literally a world of information. With the click of a mouse button they can gather information on any subject from any corner of the globe almost instantaneously. But having this information at their finger tips does not increase a student's understanding or knowledge. For the most part their search results in so many hits that they cannot weed out the useless and focus on what they need.

The other thing I notice is the increasing amount of plagiarism. Because of the vast amount of information they can get, some students figure that they can get away with cutting and pasting text from the internet into their projects. They don't seem to realize that as easy as it is for them to find the information, we teachers have access to the same tools. We can find it as easily as they did. Oh, and if you are going to cut and paste something – make sure it is in the same font and is the same size as everything else! I actually had a paper passed in with at least 3 different font types and sizes. Oh, one other thing -- be able to read those big words you have on the page! Nothing gives you away like not being able to pronounce something you supposedly wrote.

Looking back on my high school days, I may not have had access to incredibly huge amounts of information, but at least I understood what I had.