its the same with letting the kids use calculators in school.no wonder they are leaving not knowing there 3 rs

the name google was found to be the same as po boo why is it so tame .

Google touches on such a small proportion of knowledge and wikipedia is chockful of mistakes. Handle with care.

Banning is just silly.

If students are not producing the quality of work then they should be taught how to produce the right quality.

Surely if they are not cutting it then perhaps they should fail the course/degree?

Perhaps too many people are being allowed to pass?

How ridiculous! I'm a non-fiction author and use google all the time as a starting point for research. I also use books and primary sources but google is a vital resource and shouldn't be banned as long as the students also know how to do hard copy research.

They'll be demanding wi-fi links in the exam hall next. Human rights, no doubt...

So now Google is guilty, I'm loving it :D.
People should be taught how to use search engines and distinguish between credible and non-credible sources. Plus nobody can deny the amount of information you get exposed to on the web.

This is ridiculous, a professor of media banning the use of search engines?!? I'll agree that wikipedia should by no means be used as the sole source of information but surely the issue here just demonstrates a failure on the part of the university to teach their students how to evaluate and compare sources to ensure their accuracy. By passing up this opportunity to educate students in making best use of the resources available to them in the digital age Prof Brabazon's students will end up being under-skilled and inappropriately prepared for the workplace because of snobbery. Online resources contain just as much (and often the same) valuable information as printed media, similarly, just because something is in a book doesn't make it more true or accurate (eg David Irving's books denying the holocaust). Institutions (particularly those providing media courses) should be giving students the tools and skills they need to filter out the twoddle and recognise the internet as the valuable, varied and interesting resource it can be.

Luke wrote:
This is ridiculous, a professor of media banning the use of search engines?!? I'll agree that wikipedia should by no means be used as the sole source of information but surely the issue here just demonstrates a failure on the part of the university to teach their students how to evaluate and compare sources to ensure their accuracy. By passing up this opportunity to educate students in making best use of the resources available to them in the digital age Prof Brabazon's students will end up being under-skilled and inappropriately prepared for the workplace because of snobbery. Online resources contain just as much (and often the same) valuable information as printed media, similarly, just because something is in a book doesn't make it more true or accurate (eg David Irving's books denying the holocaust). Institutions (particularly those providing media courses) should be giving students the tools and skills they need to filter out the twoddle and recognise the internet as the valuable, varied and interesting resource it can be.

Goes to show you what book reading you have done ! David Irving has never written 'I deny the holocaust' in any of his books. Read the transcript of the court case, see what he actually was prosecuted for. David Irving is the foremost historian on World War 2. Why do you think so many benefactors have come out on his behalf over the years to fund his research. The Prof' does look a little silly in his remarks though. What does he have to say about all the sites that exist on the net that have exact copies of text books that reside in university libraries the world over worth thousand of dollars each in some cases ? They exist in an Adobe .pdf format. I'd say this is a case of misuse of access to a press release, it's the prof' who should be banned from the media.

PECKHAM POLYTECHNIC, Saturday (UNN) — A lecturer has criticised students for relying on "books" and "journals" to do their thinking for them.

Tara Raboomtiyay, Professor of Reflexive Perspectives on Post-Modern Verbosity at the University of Bumsonseats, said too many young people around the world were taking the easy option when asked to do research and simply repeating the first things they found in library searches.

She has dubbed the phenomenon "The University of Dead Words On Paper."

"The education world has pursued new technology with an almost evangelical zeal," she said. "Too many students don't use their own brains enough and just cite something they see in a 'book' or a 'journal.' We need to bring back the important values of critical reading and net forum discussion. Young people are finishing education with shallow ideas and need to learn interpretative skills before starting to use technology.

"Thousands of students across Britain are churning out banal and mediocre work by stringing together references to what 'libraries' provide them. I don't think students come to university to learn how to use 'books,' they can all do that before they get here. It is an easy way out for tutors to let them work to their own devices using 'literature searches,' rather than active participatory discussion on phpBB. People have to pay to come to university now and what they are paying for is the knowledge, experience and guidance of forum moderators like myself.

"I warn you, if you keep doing this 'writing', you'll lose your memory!"

She will be giving a lecture on the issue, called Britannica Is White Bread For The Mind, at the Alan Dubious Lecture Theatre on Wednesday at 6.30pm.

Yup, doesn't seem like the lecturer in question has thought this one through.

A good library should provide information easily. Doesn't matter whether the library is stocked with paper products or electronic resources, whether the librarians are human or index-bots. What the students do with that information is another matter.

Telling the students which books to use is just as bad as them using the same search engines. If the students need there own ideas then maybe we should give them nothing and then just let them make it up. Of course that is as silly as banning Google. Maybe we should just teach the students how to use the resources they have available to them. Banning media! How progressive!!

She's right in a way. Students should learn the traditional methods of research too. But I disagree with the argument, that digitilization doesn't allow students to use their brain.
If it is really so, the cause is not digitilization, but the bad use of it.
The (social) web has enabled an interactive production of information; if this is used correctly, the information aggregated could be better than any single book.
If students don't see the online information with a critical mind, the problem is not the content of the information.

If we look at the history of media, we see that new mediums are usually treated with disdain by those who are comfortable with the old media—the Greek orators were afraid that by adopting writing that people’s ability to remember information would be diminished and that people would become imbeciles (I exaggerate a little). And yes, while writing has degraded people’s ability to remember long orations (realistically, how many people can recite one of Sophocles’ works from memory?), writing has allowed us to do so much more (e.g., verify the accuracy of data, make information widely available and given us the ability to share knowledge across time and space…). Similarly, many were upset with the adoption of calculators in mathematics, claiming that people would forget how to do “simple” calculations and that they would become dependent on their tools to “think” for them. Yet calculators (and now computers) allow those with the fundamental mathematical knowledge to perform complex calculations that would take a considerably long time to perform using more “traditional” means (and help to ensure greater accuracy—how long would it have taken humans, unassisted by computers, to decode the Human Genome?) The examples are endless, and Google and Wikipedia are simply two new tools (like books and calculators) that allow us to process information. (Note I said process , not necessarily create new information—that’s a whole other philosophical issue.) The tools, in and of themselves, are not responsible for the lack of quality thought—that’s a human issue, and one that is encountered regardless of the information medium (printed books with poor quality information aren’t much different from electronic media with poor quality information). And that’s one of the problems with Google and Wikipedia (another being using these resources as sole sources of information which could introduce bias into the information that people receive). The fact that users of these resources don’t always retrieve quality information speaks more to the skills and qualities of the user rather than the tool itself. It’s the garbage-in, garbage-out (GIGO) principle, and if users don’t know how to find quality information or how to create quality materials, then all they will be able to produce is poor quality information. Rather than simply lamenting the decline of print media’s dominance, we should be trying to find ways to leverage the new technologies to take full advantage of the new information environment in which we find ourselves—as evolution shows us, organisms that fail to adapt to their environment become extinct.

Regarding:

"I give them a reading list to work from and expect them to cite a good number of them in any work they produce."

Last year's educators don't learn that there is no inherent validity to knowledge just because it's printed on dead trees. If you're using internet sources without verifying that their based on sound research (including citations), you're not using them right. What they need to understand is that knowledge stored digitally is still the same knowledge, we just need to learn knew ways to assimilate, verify, and use it. Rather than refusing to move forward, these teachers should recognize the massive positive impact the internet is having (and the even greater potential it would have if they would teach students how to use it properly).

John Kirkham wrote:

Luke wrote:
This is ridiculous, a professor of media banning the use of search engines?!? I\'ll agree that wikipedia should by no means be used as the sole source of information but surely the issue here just demonstrates a failure on the part of the university to teach their students how to evaluate and compare sources to ensure their accuracy. By passing up this opportunity to educate students in making best use of the resources available to them in the digital age Prof Brabazon\'s students will end up being under-skilled and inappropriately prepared for the workplace because of snobbery. Online resources contain just as much (and often the same) valuable information as printed media, similarly, just because something is in a book doesn\'t make it more true or accurate (eg David Irving\'s books denying the holocaust). Institutions (particularly those providing media courses) should be giving students the tools and skills they need to filter out the twoddle and recognise the internet as the valuable, varied and interesting resource it can be.

Goes to show you what book reading you have done ! David Irving has never written \'I deny the holocaust\' in any of his books. Read the transcript of the court case, see what he actually was prosecuted for. David Irving is the foremost historian on World War 2. Why do you think so many benefactors have come out on his behalf over the years to fund his research. The Prof\' does look a little silly in his remarks though. What does he have to say about all the sites that exist on the net that have exact copies of text books that reside in university libraries the world over worth thousand of dollars each in some cases ? They exist in an Adobe .pdf format. I\'d say this is a case of misuse of access to a press release, it\'s the prof\' who should be banned from the media.

Oops, I stand corrected. Just goes to show that good research is essential, whether web-based or in more 'traditional' media. That's the last time I grab an example from the ether without checking it out. Probably on google or wikipedia.
With regard your point on .pdf versions of books, it shouldn't be forgotten that google themselves were pushing to digitise huge numbers of books before they were scuppered by copyright laws. I believe it might still be going to some extent - I'm off to research it - on google.

usually post notes here and always keeps me opinions to meself as yer know, but all this has got me started I tells yer. Cabbie Glen, yer right , bleedin islands placed in the middle of the road what chance yer got, none ,dont get me started I tells yer, roundabouts, islands, bollards, school crossing patrols, traffic lights an all that just make the driving more difficult and no wonder someone is gonna hit one. its alright Sue giving it all that when i know shes a regular for tha cabs too, muppet, best give a false name next time girl as i think you'll be waiting a bit longer for a pick-up, like the crowd waiting for Amy Whine-house to turn up for a concert, muppet, hope she at least won her game of pool, heard she's a bit tasty so it probably was for money, shes getting a bit short what with all the coke, smoke, dope, babysham an uppers shes on eh ! muppet.

I know glen the cabbie from old, bleedin menace, mad muppet I tells yer, gives us genuine carefull cabbies a bad name, hopes he loses is lisense I tells yer, yer gotta blame the government for giving him one I remember when all yer got in a jamboree Bag was a toffee and a toy now it looks like driving liseses and hackney lisenses are also in em, muppets.

make em drive busses for a few weeks that'l teach em real driving skills I tells yer, I got loads of friends on the busses, none of em like me though, muppets.

I had that Jeremy clarkson in the back of the cab once, mouthy get I tells yer, I hate bleedin bikes as yer know but he was sticking up fer em like nones bisness I tells yer, muppet.

Vance wrote:
Regarding:

"I give them a reading list to work from and expect them to cite a good number of them in any work they produce."

Last year's educators don't learn that there is no inherent validity to knowledge just because it's printed on dead trees. If you're using internet sources without verifying that their based on sound research (including citations), you're not using them right. What they need to understand is that knowledge stored digitally is still the same knowledge, we just need to learn knew ways to assimilate, verify, and use it. Rather than refusing to move forward, these teachers should recognize the massive positive impact the internet is having (and the even greater potential it would have if they would teach students how to use it properly).

Could not agree with you more.
After reading the article, this is exactly the sentiment I was going to enter as a comment, but you have done it more eloquently that I could have!
Thanks again for voicing this reality check.

This use of these new-fangled "matches" just creates laziness and leads to banal and mediocre fires.

I am now banning matches and all of my students must create their fires by rubbing sticks together!

To think I might have missed this if I had not googled for "silliest professor ever "!

Of course people should be required to cite primary sources and to read (the format in which they read is irrelevant -- google in fact has duplicated several libraries making previously unavailable books both available and searchable).

If one wants a certain quality of work, simple: insist on it.

If one wants to ban citations to certain non-primary sources, who cares?

But to ban the use entirely of a tool that helps people find information? <h2>Silliest Professor Ever</h2>

Dont you think the lady professor is rightly peeved if dozens of her students are presenting her with identical work all copied and pasted off Google?

I know I would be in her position.

Two clicks and its done - you dont even need to read it, and certainly dont need to understand it.

So the solution to plagiarism is to ban the source of the plagiarism and not address its cause? When my students cut and paste from Google they earn an F, not a banning of a search engine.

Studnets are lazy and they have no idea how to carry out real research. The problem is allowing everyone to study at university.

Cut and paste is not the same as writing. Students who do not will not learn about the key to life's success, which is creating a style. Students without style - how uncool is that?

They are just looking to a future of being workplace fodder which is no future.

Very bad idea!
The teacher's mission is to teach the students to think.
Thinking needs stuff, facts, ideas, principles, laws, whatever- raw material.
Google and Wikipedia are just sources of such materials.
If the lecturer herself can think, it will be contagious.
Sadly enough, it seems that it is not the case.

FACT : Lecturers are obligated to justify their position

FACT : They do this by producing "research" and publishing articles periodically

FACT : all this is about is some two-bit lecturer on a two-bit course in a two-bit town cut n' pasting some stale old read-it-before-elsew
here stuff into a lecture to justify her salary and the "course" she provides.

The whole thing is not worth a light.

What does 'banned' in this instance even mean? I believe it's standard practice on most courses to dissallow references from wikipedia (I know it is on my UoB one).

Gracious me. We were taught to cite all of our references and sources...banning these sites is just crazy, in my opinion anyway. Possible the students should be 'educated' enough to know whether the information is viable and whether or not to use it.
Getting rid of a source of information, however dubious, is a nonsense. They should be left to themselves once they've been given guidance!

fr mcinally wrote:
its the same with letting the kids use calculators in school.no wonder they are leaving not knowing there 3 rs

"no wonder they are leaving not knowing there 3 rs"

Or indeed when to use "their" versus "there"...

That aside, "Books Good -- Internet Bad" is way too simplistic. Students should be taught the limitations of Google and Wikipedia and how to distinguish worthwhile content from the dross. Banning these resources outright rather than confronting them doesn't equip students for the real world where they WILL bang their search request into Google.

Don't ban. Educate. That is what the kids need. Google and wikipedia can be great sources of reference when well used. I think many people speak without the experience. Banning is not the solution. it will only push the kids further way from school. They might even ban it on campus but not from other places where learning also happens, such as home, cyber cafes and other social places. So don't ban. Educate. Give students the tools they need to learn in and beyond the school gates. Educate. Don't segregate!

She may enjoy a new website, METANOTES.COM - students use MetaNotes to take notes and compose their papers using a simple post-it-note looking interface. http://www.metanotes

.com is the link.

fr mcinally wrote:
its the same with letting the kids use calculators in school.no wonder they are leaving not knowing there 3 rs

I think you'll find there are numbers on calculators, not letters.........

It's interesting that Tara Brabazon has "banned" students from using Wikipedia and the Google. Alan Liu of UCSB (and VoS) has developed a policy on student use of Wikipedia; find it here: http://tinyurl.com/3
5b5vc

Alan Liu's Wikipedia policy:
http://tinyurl.com/3
5b5vc

(the URL should be on one line)

Having been to lecture I have to say that the issues she raised are more complex than this article manages to express. She basically wants people to think about it...which it seems they are so in that respect she is a complete success. No publicity is bad publicity, so in fact she is using the media perfectly. As we might expect from a Professor of Media...

Plus, her lecture was, in fact, very entertaining and engaging, not to mention packed with people!

She does adopt a sensationalist style - very much like this article, just look at the headline! - to provoke thought in her audience.

Those of you who say she is "banning Google" etc. ought to read through again and really reflect on what she might actually mean...why, as a teacher, she might insist on there being an exercise to promote print-based research techniques. (As someone who is well aware of the growing number of plagiarism cases I imagine that there are yet more rules that she sets for her classes!)

Use your brains people! Perhaps you should get a print copy of this article so that you can really reflect...


Or not.

I believe this teacher will soon be..history. The same persons would have banned Voltaire's Encyclopedie at the time. Sounds like obsurantism to me.

sue wrote:
Studnets are lazy and they have no idea how to carry out real research. The problem is allowing everyone to study at university.

Students are lazy? surely giving her students the books to do the research is spoon feeding just as much as the internet...the porblem is what are they being taught in High Schools etc...not whats happening in universities

Ridiculous. This sort of thing reminds me why I got my degree and am finished with the formal education system.

Google & Wikipedia ARE my university, as are bookstores, libraries, and my personal collection.

This is utterly stupid and banal.
I assume she hasn’t banned them from her website http://brabazon.net/ with links to Amazon to buy her books (including the academic masterpiece ‘Ladies Who Lunge’ – read the extract and weep). Incidentally, Tara seems to have made that amateurish cut-and-paste error in her own piece on Google; repeating paragraphs twice! http://brabazon.net/
google.shtml

Academics like Brazabon have a cheek bleating on about plagiarism. If her students are submitting banal, cut-and-paste essays, she should be the person we blame. Tens of thousands of pounds for a University degree and we all we get are academics who inspire this kind of reaction from their students!

I am a student of Tara's and I can honestly say she is best teacher I have ever had. she is very intelligent and has gone out of her way to help people so much. A lot of points are being made on here from people who have never met and are making assumptions about the type of person she must be. She does not expect us to use old out of date textbooks. in fact we are provided with a selection of very up to date and relevant readings. I have learnt so much in her lectures and everything is very relevant to what will happen when we leave university and the real world. We are not banned from using the internet for research in fact there are many sites on our reading lists which have academic and credible articles. How are we really supposed to quote wikipedia when a lot of is not actually accurate. Does it not make sense to use reliable credible and academic sources.

i'm also one of Tara's students this year. she hasn't banned google, she just doesn't want it to be used on its own as a research tool. at the beginning of the course we're given a large reading list that, the majority of that being less than 15 years old, if not newer. about a third of that reading list is from online publications and websites. so it's not that she's 'banning the internet' as many people here have coined, but she doesn't want us to be ignorant, superficial and lazy when it comes to research. you can't understand what she's trying to do from this article, google and wikipedia are great places to start research, but not to cite for university level work. just look at what the person wrote who actually went to the lecture, also the other student who is in her lectures and myself who takes her classes and can say i've learnt more from her than any of my teachers since the beginning of high school. this article says nothing about what she's actually doing.

Why stop with Google. Why not ban the internet or event the telephone. Get over it it's the 21st century...

opensourceinthehood.

com

Yakir wrote:
Ridiculous. This sort of thing reminds me why I got my degree and am finished with the formal education system.

Google & Wikipedia ARE my university, as are bookstores, libraries, and my personal collection.

Well, being from the United States you would say that as those tools reflect YOUR thinking instead of NEUTRAL thinking, something a physical, well-stocked, library typically has.

90% of all information contributed to English-speaking Wikipedia (by Wikipedia's own research; type the keyword WP:BIAS into the search box on the Wikipedia home page) comes from the United States. This bias is rife within the very fabric of Wikipedia with most of its "elected" administrators also from the US enforcing the policy.

Ms. Brabazon is spot on in being worried and I would be as well. People from the UK and Australia take note: English language and culture is being redefined by Wikipedia and both of those countries are going to disappear within a single generation of Wikipedia-using children if action like the kind Ms. Brabazon is not taken now.

I hear a lot sour grapes in this story. The key is learning how to filter out information that isn't useful. Banning Google/Wikipedia is not the right approach. I don't see anything in the article that mentions how to filter out. Quite frankly, some of the books I come across are no better.

sue wrote:
Studnets are lazy and they have no idea how to carry out real research. The problem is allowing everyone to study at university.

Studnets?
Are they too lazy to learn to check their spelling, too?

I missed the opportunity to meet and hear Tara at the LILAC conference earlier today but I have heard that she delivered a wonderful, provocative and inspiring presentation.

I have not read the book but Tara seems to be advocating a common sense approarch to training.

I think it is similar to sport training. In football, if you are right footed you might be told not to use the right foot to encourage use of the left foot. In boxing, you might be told not to use the right hand, even strapping your arm to your body, so that you will develop the skills, knowledge and experience to use the left.

Learners are using Google too much and it is having a negative impact on their learning experience.

Learners need to develop a wide range of information literacy skills, including the evaluation of a wide range of information sources.

I understand the concern of allowing them to use internet resources as it could be seen as a way to cut corners. However, the fact of the matter is, the internet is a major source of research for young scholars, and it will be used as such long after this teacher has left the profession. Researching from books is an important skill, as is research from the internet. Knowing how to calculate math in your head or on paper is a required skill as is knowing how to use a calculator. Banning the use of the technology does not improve the students learning experience. It impedes it. It is my opinion that a more enlightened method would be to allow internet research provided that it is validated by another source, as in journalism. This way they will have to either interview someone in a profession as a valid source or provide a precedent from a book. Teachers who believe that they are guides to truth and knowledge and accommodate the mediums that students propose using, will connect far more effectively.

i felt i needed to comment on this again, i think this article has taken things pretty out of context. "I want them to experience the pages and the print as much as the digitisation and the pixels. Both are fine but I want them to have both, not one or the other, not a cheap solution.". the problem with the internet as a research tool is it doesn't go through any sort of referee system that published research does, anybody can publish on the internet. she gives us the material to read in the sense that she's read it already, she knows it's viable research. i think it's hard for people to make a judgement on this without actually reading the book, having attended the lecture, being part of one of her courses or just talking to tara herself.

no

Why has this boring old story been dug out of the archives!!!!

Even most of the postings are the better part of 6 months old!!!!

Lets have that old front page story about the little girl not being allowed on the rides on the pier, because she was too tall! I dont think it was picked up by Reuters, but it did cause interest on here albeit for the wrong reasons! And Mrs Glen Anne Carraher her clever solicitor mother from Surrey got free publicity by phoning the Argus - although the saying 'that any publicity is good publicity' didnt quite hold true!!!! Silly woman!!!!

Sooooooo funny!!!!

Yeah lets have a few more of the old stories - we need a laaf!!!!

Has anyone heard of google scholar? A fantastic resource to locate reputable sources on the net. This article is tosh, I went to the University of Southampton and would never have got away with solely using google it is a search tool to use alongside journals, periodicals and books. Maybe the media studies department need to higher their standards.

wombat wrote:
Has anyone heard of google scholar? A fantastic resource to locate reputable sources on the net. This article is tosh, I went to the University of Southampton and would never have got away with solely using google it is a search tool to use alongside journals, periodicals and books. Maybe the media studies department need to higher their standards.

You evidently never learnt the rules of English grammar or correct punctuation did you.

Why not learn some via Google?