Memorization is a waste of time when Google is only a a few clicks away. That's what Don Tapscott, author of the bestselling books Wikinomics and Growing Up Digital, believes. Tapscott, considered by many to be a leading commentator on our Internet age, believes the age of learning through the memorization of facts and figures is coming to an end. Instead, students should be taught to think creatively and better understand the knowledge that's available online.
According to Tapscott, the existence of Google, Wikipedia, and other online libraries means that rote memorization is no longer a necessary part of education. "Teachers are no longer the fountain of knowledge; the internet is," Tapscott told the Times. "Kids should learn about history to understand the world and why things are the way they are. But they don't need to know all the dates. It is enough that they know about the Battle of Hastings, without having to memorize that it was in 1066. They can look that up and position it in history with a click on Google," he said.
He doesn't feel that method of learning is anti-education since the information we must all digest is coming in at lightning speed. "Children are going to have to reinvent their knowledge base multiple times," he continues. "So for them memorizing facts and figures is a waste of time."
For the older generations who grew up having to memorize historical dates and mathematical formulas, the idea that memorization shouldn't be a part of the educational experience is somewhat shocking. Of course you need to know the exact year something happened...don't you? Or is it better to just have a general idea so you can focus on better understanding the context and meaning?
Today's students are growing up in a world where multi-tasking has them completely immersed in digital experiences. They text and surf the net while listening to music and updating their Facebook page. This "continuous partial attention" and its impacts on our brains is a much-discussed topic these days in educational circles. Are we driving distracted or have our brains adapted to the incoming stimuli?
A new book on the subject, "iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind," states that our exposure to the net is impacting the way our brains form neural pathways. Wiring up our brains like this makes us adept at filtering information, making snap decisions, and fielding the incoming digital debris, but sustained concentration, reading body language, and making offline friends are skills that are fading away.
If our brains are, in fact, becoming rewired, wouldn't it make sense that the way we teach students to learn should adapt, too? Actually, there aren't too many people who think so. Most educators, like Richard Cairns, Headmaster of Brighton College, one of the U.K's top-performing independent schools, believe that core level of knowledge was essential. "It's important that children learn facts. If you have no store of knowledge in your head to draw from, you cannot easily engage in discussions or make informed decisions," he says.
Do you agree?
Comments
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While I do think that education has to change to keep up with the wealth of information that is now so easily available I think that it is important to keep teaching children a broad range of subject so that they have some basis to asses the validity of the information that is out there. Having a good base allows you to know where to start looking for the more detailed knowledge. We have to adapt the teaching so that along side the basic knowledge they are also taught how to interpret and search out the correct information. At the end of the day this has always how it should have been but before you have to look for other sources where as now a lot of them are combined on the internet. It is also good to teach them that Google is not the one true source and that there are other resources out there to be considered.
Posted by: John Cooper
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December 2, 2008 6:52 AM
"It is enough that they know about the Battle of Hastings, without having to memorize that it was in 1066. They can look that up and position it in history with a click on Google,"
... well, they have just to hope that there was just one battle at Hastings ! Let's take the event the "Siege of Rome", well on Wikipedia alone you have 92 results !!! from 508 BC to 1849 ...
Memory must keep track of the date, place, type of event,... what you can leave out (and search later) is the full description, images, videos...
Culture is not data, but there is no culture with proper data coprehension.
Posted by: Jac | December 2, 2008 6:54 AM
Here's a thought...before the Internet if a student needed to find out the date of the Battle of Hastings they could open (gasp) a book. What we're doing is using the convenience of the Internet to justify teaching the less popular skills and content in the classroom. The phrase "just Google it" used to be said "look it up."
Teach them. Expand their minds. Both the facts and the concepts, the ideas and the details. They may never need to know 1066 in the future, but helping them develop the skills to recall specific facts on demand will come in handy professionally, there is no disputing that.
Posted by: Art Gelwicks | December 2, 2008 7:10 AM
"if _are_ brains are [...]" in an article on changing education is ironic. It goes right along with the spelling is not important arguments.
But back to the point: the facts memorized are not near as important as the process of memorization. If the process is not taught early, and those neural pathways established, then what is the hope of our future population ever retaining anything?
So with the advent of ever smaller and ever more powerful devices an argument could be made that the technology is ever present... But technology fails. Then what?
Posted by: TheSamiM | December 2, 2008 7:12 AM
@TheSamiM: Actually, that's a typo and it's now fixed. I *do* know the difference between "are" and "our!!" ha ha! I just have a bad habit of letting my fingers get ahead of (or sometimes behind) the words I'm trying to put down on the the page. Brain to finger coordination is a skill I never entirely mastered, apparently.
Of course, when I took typing for the first time, it was on a typewriter with ribbon and clacking keys. We retyped printouts of text, not thoughts in our head. I never had the opportunity to type notes in class like today's students do. Perhaps that's where I could have perfected brain-to-finger coordination skills. Hmmm.
Posted by: Sarah Perez
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December 2, 2008 7:30 AM
The problem with saying that "the age of learning through the memorization of facts and figures is coming to an end" is that you're assuming that the internet is always available! What if it's not?? Will we raise a generation of students who are absolutely clueless if they don't have online access? I hope not. I'm not against using the internet when it's available, but we darn well better be able to function when it's not.
Posted by: Bob Rowlands | December 2, 2008 7:35 AM
Children today are lucky to have internet as a effective tool to learn whatever they want and need. However, the Internet can't replace the learn process, including memorizing some basic knowledge to pratice our brain physically.
The internet is a supplement, not a replacement, at least at this point. It might happen in the future. Who knows?
Just like you can learn everything over the internet, but the internet can't replace a live classroom, teachers and tutors.
HappyTutors.com - Connect Tutors with Students & Parents
Posted by: HappyTutors.com - Connect Tutors with Students & Parents | December 2, 2008 7:44 AM
I'm a Society and Internet teacher so the discussion is old hat as far as I'm concerned. Art is right.
Understanding, comprehension, whatever you want to call it, is key to discovery and effective communication. How the student comes to understanding the development of the human enterprise is idiosyncratic. Most people use dates so as to anchor disparate events allowing them to relate contemporary developments to one another.
For example, thinking of William of Ockham as a scientist rather than a theologian is a common problem with students.
With all due respect to Tapscott, how would a student come to make the kind of connections James Burke does in his series without knowing several things rather comprehensively at once? ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burke_(science_historian) )
This bears on natural language processing and search technology. There is currently no substitute for Mr. Burke's brain available on the Interwebs. Or is there?
( http://www.deepwebtech.com/customers/index.html )
In practice, average students have a hard time getting past the satisficing they do routinely that prevents them from looking at more than the top result in a query, let alone re-framing the query.
Posted by: Bob Calder | December 2, 2008 7:45 AM
> Memorization is a waste of time when Google is only a a few clicks away.
> Instead, students should be taught to think creatively and better understand the knowledge that's available.
These statements seem silly to me.
What is learning? Learning is a combination of memorization and evolved specialized problem-solving patterns, which themselves are memorized. Without memorization, learning is impossible.
"Creative thinking" is only possible and effective within a field that one has already mastered, or at least in which one has learned all the basics. With rare exceptions, one cannot have useful creative thoughts without a good understanding of the field in which the creativity is supposed to occur. This is true in the arts, sciences, and in pretty much any other specialized areas in which creativity is useful or valuable.
Of course it's hugely convenient to have external resources like Google and Wikipedia available for rapid research. But without memorization, no one would know what to research in the first place, and no one would have the appropriate cultural, professional, or historical context to have an informed opinion on any subject. The common and widespread deterioration of basic levels of knowledge of the world, of history, of science, and culture is already depressing enough without suggesting that we deliberately want to eliminate any attempts at proper education in these matters.
No one is saying that rote memorization of random facts is valuable in itself. Memorization as an educational practice should be with some end in mind, presumably combined with problem-solving or creative work requirements. But in any field of study, whether it's in elementary school history class, or in an advanced academic or professional setting, memorization in the context of learning and study is fundamental.
Take a random example, organic chemistry. The traditional undergrad class in this subject is one vast memorization exercise. Any given little reaction sequence can trivially be looked up online. But can you imagine a chemist or biologist having to look up every elementary reaction every time they need to reason about chemical synthesis or biological pathways?
That doesn't mean that education should ignore the wealth of resources available online; of course students should be taught how to do effective online research at an early stage. But the suggestion that even with a ubiquitous Internet people will no longer need to memorize things is absurd.
Posted by: Miramon | December 2, 2008 7:48 AM
Does anybody else think this is drek?
It's in the Harper-Collins write-up on the book cited in the article. I thought it was funny the link wasn't to Amazon.Mimi Ito and danah boyd are two the people you should pay attention to when it comes to statements that come from the land of woo. Let me remind ReadWriteWeb that it reported on danah boyd's new position recently.
Posted by: Bob Calder | December 2, 2008 7:55 AM
This point of view is based on a fundamental lack of understanding of how our brains work. Our brains have an amazing ability to hold a vast quantity of information in long-term memory and make it easily available for doing analysis or recognizing patterns. We have a much poorer ability to keep things in our short-term memory - this has been frequently measured as 5-9 "things" at a time. Short-term and long-term memory are fundamentally different.
Posted by: Terry | December 2, 2008 8:10 AM
No mention of why Tapscott believes the two abilities are mutually exclusive (hint: becuase they're not). Very silly
Posted by: JoeCure | December 2, 2008 8:12 AM
Memorization is a significant component of learning. As a previous commentator notes, it is one of many parts of learning. On a basic level, think about how you can't read until you memorize letters, word sounds, etc.
At a recent dinner of my family and that of a brilliant physicist, we all agreed on the importance of memorization. The physicist told how he realized he simply had to memorize quite a bit, such as organic chemistry. We all felt that you can't rely too much on calculators. Kids need to learn basic math facts (add, multiply, etc.) to succeed and be confident and quick in math.
If people don't memorize history facts, they will find much of popular culture confusing -- including elections and politics, movies and plays, books, even video games. For instance, if you don't know the dates of U.S. Civil War (without looking them up) then how you can clearly comprehend the constant recent political talk about Race Issues, North vs. South, or understand why Gone With the Wind is intriguing, or why bringing a Confederate flag to a rock concert still opens wounds? It's just one of many examples. But it's heart breaking to find out how few teen-agers know when the Civil War dates. That's in part because our culture has devalued basic memorization. A 2008 survey showed fewer than half of the teens knew what the Civil War was. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/education/27history.html) This is just one example. Technology is great but it needs to be seen as a tool, not a crutch. We need to know how to manipulate it, rather than be dependent on it.
Posted by: JadeBlue | December 2, 2008 8:13 AM
Sarah,
There is so much information to learn. Clearly we can choose things such as remembering key dates as something that can have less emphasis and replace this with learning more about new information.
I think education will evolve to be online and entertaining with less emphasis on memorization. Schools will still be there but geared more towards re-emphasizing the information and teaching the social skills necessary.
We need to prepare people to be more efficient and learn to augment their skills with technology. Compare this to using a calculator. How many people would be better engineers if a class on using calculators was provided instead of continually stating that no calculators can be used in class. As a manager, I want highly effective and productive people, not walking dictionaries.
:)
Harley
Posted by: harleycw.pip.verisignlabs.com
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December 2, 2008 8:26 AM
Quality education hasn't focused on rote memorization for quite a few years. Facts and figures could always be found in the library and now on your phone. This will push education to improve more by focusing on more deeper understanding and critical thinking.
Posted by: chris | December 2, 2008 8:29 AM
Tapscott would suggest that every time the so-called knowledge base changes, we have to reinvent ourselves. What a disaster! With enough reinventions we'd have nothing left that we might call human. He's made two giant assumptions with which he cannot be let to get away. He's said that learning is mostly about knowledge. It is about knowledge, but not mostly; it's also about wisdom, the good, beauty, truth. And he's fallen into the modern self-flattery that these days change comes at lightning speed. Humankind has always been reeling before things it cannot take in: the pace of new knowledge or the pace of a dragon as it charges the hero. The thing that has kept us alive is not the ability to change at the drop of a hat--to become like the dragon, when dragons are about; the thing that has kept us alive is the ability not to change, to stand on some piece of solid ground and give account.
Posted by: Brad Ovenell-Carter | December 2, 2008 8:42 AM
I've been an advocate for many years against the "you must memorize stupid facts because I said so" kind of learning. Blah! Learning should always be FUN and MEANINGFUL. That said, there are many types of "foundational knowledge" that MUST be memorized. I fully expect my children to memorize their multiplication tables, for example (ok, my oldest is five, so I'm not putting too much pressure on her yet...).
I'm in my mid-30s and I couldn't tell you the exact dates of the Civil War or how to find circumference - thankfully, I have Google search ON MY MOBILE PHONE that can provide me with those answers when I need them. That frees up my mind for creativity - how am I going to USE those facts I'm looking up?
Oh, and as for the Internet not being available? This is 2008: the net is always available! If and when the day comes that it's not (because, I assume, some catastrophe - physical or virtual - has decimated the planet), we have far bigger problems (i.e., safety and survival) than looking up the dates of past bloodshed.
Posted by: Adam R. | December 2, 2008 8:45 AM
the above reactions echo my sentiments. let educators and some parents read this and you'll have loads of hmmm.
i understand where you're coming from but what we have in the classroom is reality that can't be wholly addressed by blindly adapting what technology can offer.
Posted by: ipanema | December 2, 2008 8:57 AM
i'm talking about comments # 1-12 (which i agree). think i hit submit very late. :)
btw, phones aren't allowed in classrooms (in my neck of the wood, not sure about others). it can be part of hi-tech cheating nowadays. moreover, i don't want students relying too much on their gadgets. i pity them. i want discussion and answers to be spontaneous. god forbid, i don't want them to be typing what's the answer to my question.
Posted by: ipanema | December 2, 2008 9:07 AM
It is ridiculous to claim that the internet can replace memorisation. In a similar way, reading blogs does not replace writing your own thoughts out. It is only by memorisation that you make facts your own. Until you have enough of your own facts, you will not even know that you should be googling for something.
I have not read any of Don Tapscott's books yet, but if they are as ridiculous as this stupid suggestion, I certainly won't bother.
Posted by: Daniel Tenner | December 2, 2008 11:33 AM
It's just a higher level of abstraction, in my mind. It's not that we're forgetting things, it's that we're setting up systems to make them more accessible through alternate and more efficient methods so that we can stand on all of that knowledge as a foundation and reach higher heights. At least that's what this has a potential to be, if we learn to search the right websites at least!
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick | December 2, 2008 2:03 PM
I think the whole discussion around memorization is a rather moot point. Memorization is a natural and contextual process of the brain and something that typically comes out of repetition or resonance.
I believe it's more important to teach people HOW to think, rather than WHAT to think. After all, that's what memorization is... passed on knowledge.
I believe memorization would come naturally based on context.
To use the Battle of Hastings example... as a developer, I don't need to know that, so there's no reason for me to memorize it... but, i have access to it at Google if I need to know it. Now, as a history buff... It's something I might remember because it resonates an interest with me.
If you're a history major or a teacher, in that context, it's important to remember it, because you'll be teaching it and it's part of your job.
So, again, it's a moot point. We shouldn't be concerned that future generations will stop using memorizations because the technology has changed.
The only ones that should be afraid of this change... are the ones who have the inability to adapt to change.
Posted by: Troy Peterson | December 2, 2008 2:29 PM
"the fountain of knowledge" - try and check that on google!
Posted by: Jedd | December 2, 2008 4:45 PM
OK, lemme see if I have this right. As I learn the alphabet, or addition tables, or basic arithmetic operations, or the rules of pronunciation, or vocabulary words... I'm supposed to fire up FireFox and find the answers?
Please...
Posted by: Bob Denny | December 2, 2008 6:10 PM
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Barbara
http://www.ipodepot.info
Posted by: Barbara | December 2, 2008 8:09 PM
Intertet is bone to the younger generation ,they should make use of them ,having said that depending too much on Internet is not recommended it's true that all info available on internet with a single click ,thinking is more important for children as they mature their knowledge rather than fully dependent on Internet.
Posted by: venkat | December 2, 2008 8:19 PM
Wide circle is a social media networking that delivers your ads to a large number of websites.
=============
Britney
social bookmarking
Posted by: britney1940
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December 2, 2008 9:06 PM
bob calder touched on itbest. Memory is critical in that it drives the "lightbulb effect", the ability to synthesize knowledge already present in the mind. Synthesize, as in bring together. Google can be part of the process that dumps the data into the brain, but the combination, the swirling mix between the ears, that is true amazement. Memorization speeds up the process. You maaaaay arrive at the same lightbulb effect. Then again,you may not. Think of it like a computer. If you have to go outside your brain to collect required data, its like bottlenecking your throughput. Basic bandwidth. Sure, just like a computer, you can can upgrade your bandwidth, by maybe using voice search, but you can NEVER match the speed of internal processing. It's quite simple actually - you just don't have to slow down to look it up in (externally) in Google, if you have it loaded (internally) Thanks for listening.
Posted by: Gary the Snail (from spongebob) | December 2, 2008 9:25 PM
I never subscribed to memorization, even when I was 5 years old in kindergarten and first grade (gulp 40 years ago), constant arguments with my teachers. I never understood it. There was too many things to learn and do, without spending the brain cycles to memorize useless information. Now with google and yeah even Yahoo, who need to memorize... and it doesn't actually make you dumber or smarter. Those with more capacity to retain will have a faster search, those with better search skills will have more information. who wins? (btw. never studied for a test or did homework and still killed my grades, standardized tests and life) oh and yes I need a calculator for math, since I never bothered to learn the multiplication tables... my win I feel, cause I spent time learning other things! (and yes I can do complex math, I need to write it or use a calculator, more that most people can say or do)
Posted by: Bryan Thatcher | December 2, 2008 10:06 PM
The Cloud never forgets. Ten, twenty years from now, the next generation of students will probably be reading these comments (and countless others like them). I wonder what their response will be?
If anything, the Cloud provides information, entertainment, and even commerce - it's a whole new platform for life. Isn't it reasonable to assume that some things are going to change over the course of the next few years?
Probably the biggest advantage in all of this is that children now have access to tens of thousands of different opinions and viewpoints on just about every subject - they're no longer bound to learn just what their teacher believes is the right thing to teach.
As far as memorization goes, that's just a matter of practice - regardless of whether you're flipping through a book, or paging through Wikipedia. What happens when they produce a print edition of Wikipedia 2008 - do all these "issues" evaporate?
~ Wogan
Posted by: Wogan | December 2, 2008 10:13 PM
In Belgium learning by rote is still the way to go for most teachers. It is easy and you can correct very rapid when students make a mistake. I hope that wikipedia is indeed the way to go.
see je,
AatjeManon
http://www.neebisjaar.be
Posted by: AatjeManon | December 3, 2008 1:02 AM
Quote:
"If people don't memorize history facts, they will find much of popular culture confusing -- including elections and politics, movies and plays, books, even video games. For instance, if you don't know the dates of U.S. Civil War (without looking them up) then how you can clearly comprehend the constant recent political talk about Race Issues, North vs. South, or understand why Gone With the Wind is intriguing, or why bringing a Confederate flag to a rock concert still opens wounds? It's just one of many examples. But it's heart breaking to find out how few teen-agers know when the Civil War dates."
Wait, seriously... I know that the Civil War started in 1861 (using memorized math that is 147 years ago), it started at Fort Sumter with PGT Beauregard in charge. The first major conflict was 1st Bull Run (North name) or the Battle of Manassas (South name). How in your estimation do these FACTS matter to race issues? Knowing that the Civil War was approximately 150 years ago and was fought somewhat on the basis of race issues and that Reconstruction that happened after the War contributed to racism is more important than dates and names. Much more important.
The 5Ws of learning need to emphasis the Why? more than the What? and When? Knowing why the Civil War happenned, knowing why reconstruction was good or bad, knowing why race mattered to the North and South, knowing how things went from bad to worse and caused the nation to crack and knowing how that history could repeat itself if certain factors realign. I am sorry, but that is, to me, or greater importance than who lead the Union forces at the Battle of Gettysburg and when said battle took place (Meade, July 1-3, 1863; no I didn't look it up, but it took me 4 seconds to do so)
Posted by: Kevin Devine | December 3, 2008 5:30 AM
And there I was about to make the same Wikipedia error by referencing Nick Carr, rather than making a statement. OK, rote memorization solely for the purpose of passing tests is, yes, very short term and not very useful. But knowing facts (dates are facts) and the ability to judge when what you're told might be unfactual, is really critical. It should not just be the wikipedia flaw that just because it 'has a reference' that it is true.
Posted by: Richard | December 3, 2008 6:17 AM
Re 30:
> The Cloud never forgets. Ten, twenty years from now, the
> next generation of students will probably be reading
> these comments (and countless others like them).
> I wonder what their response will be?
Nonsense. Whether stored or erased, nothing is as ephemeral and forgettable as blog and forum comments, including this one.
If you google any general topic, there will be millions of hits for random forum postings and blog comments, but you will almost never see them, because they are buried deep deep deep in the ordering. Why are they buried so deep? Because (with rare exceptions) no one ever links to them, no one rereads them, no one cares about them a week after the posting, and so google rightfully considers them utterly irrelevant.
Oh yeah, and if the OP's ideas are carried out in education, students won't be reading these comments for another good reason -- they won't know how to read :)
Posted by: Miramon | December 3, 2008 7:15 AM
Teaching context without detailed memorization required sounds right but is difficult to accomplish. I see this challenge daily as I watch the results of this philosophy: my 13-year old daughter struggles to put events in their proper sequence, perhaps because she can't figure out which came first: the Battle of Hastings or the establishment of the Magna Carta. Knowing the dates would simplify things.
Sure, she could reach for the PC and search, but that's not always practical.
This isn't to say that we should keep forcing kids to memorize dates; but teachers have already opted to substitute context for strict memorization without figuring out exactly how to make sure the context is properly understood.
Posted by: Michael Hickins | December 3, 2008 11:59 AM
New and emerging web technologies are changing how we access information in the global knowledgebase. The Cloud serves as an external hard drive for our long-term memory.
However, what does not change is the fundamental need for our students and adults to have good information processing abilities (working memory)so they can understand the information they are accessing.
Is rote memorization necessary today? Likely not as important as it once was, but the information that we store and recall is part of what shapes who we are.
Posted by: Alex Doman | December 3, 2008 1:42 PM
Very interesting discussion. As someone who has spent most of the past decade doing educational research, I have come across a broad spectrum of opinion (some of it very well-informed; some of it simply based on personal beliefs) on this topic. The part I see us not valuing adequately is the effect of various mental activities on the development of the brain. It appears from recent neurological research that we need the combination of "exercise" (brain gym) to ensure that children learn how to organize their minds to use them to their full potential. Memorization is one of these activities that is enormously valuable and it is becoming clear that it is vitally important in developing the generic skill of focusing on tasks that require the use of advanced logic and deep thinking. Without this skill, people are at significant risk of not be able to concentrate, synthesize data, think critically and generate high quality new knowledge. Like most mental activities, it is not an end in itself, but it is clearly critical in helping us to unleash our creativity. With a steady diet of television and video games, children (and others who spend large amounts of time in these two activities) show tendencies towards ADHD, which probably accounts for the huge increase in diagnosis of kids with this problem across North America. The solution, as in all things, is finding balance - between activities that excite the brain and those that calm it; those that assist mental agility and those that assist deep thinking and reflection; those that help us to have rich imaginative experiences and those that help us to fully experience the observed world in which we live.
Don Tapscott's view of the world is very optimistic and incomplete. For one antidote to this, read Dave Crenshaw's The Myth of Multitasking.
Thanks for a great conversation starter, Sarah!
Posted by: Peter Malcolm | December 3, 2008 1:42 PM
Let me put it simply.
With more (trustworthy) facts in my head, I am able to query the Web much more pertinently and find the answers that I need much more effectively than people with equivalent search skills but fewer facts in their head. One thing that the Web is unlikely to achieve in the foreseeable future is to be able to always guess what I might be looking for.
Additionally, I can be operational even when I am off the grid or in situations where the Web is not accessible (not to mention the ever present possibility of a catastrophic event: tsunami, nuclear disaster, terrorist attack, civil war, and so forth; yes, people, those do happen).
Mastering the Web is a good thing; depending on it is not.
Posted by: Jean-Michel Decombe | December 3, 2008 4:54 PM
Google is kinda like a calculator when we were growing up...
My 8 year old said the other day "Why do I need to know that, I can just Google it"
It reminded me of when I was a kid a wondering why I had to know how to do long division by hand when I could always use a calculator.
Amazing.
Posted by: me | December 3, 2008 11:01 PM
Tapscott's suggestions are very unfortunate. He ignores everything we have learned over the last decade about how the human brain develops. He also makes a questionable distinction between memorization and rote learning (related perhaps but not the same). In the simplest terms, if we fail to give memorization exercises then our children will not develop the neural network they need to skillfully memorize when required in the future.
This is a case of good research, but a bad conclusion. Technology will change the way our children's brains develop (no doubt), but the need for something as basic as memorization will remain. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Posted by: Michael | December 4, 2008 5:55 AM
If our brains are, in fact, becoming rewired, wouldn't it make sense that the way we teach students to learn should adapt, too?
It is easy to argue that memorization is still an important factor in learning. It’s also easy to argue that the internet diminishes the need for some traditional memorization requirements. I can see a good point for both sides, thanks in part to the many contributors of these comments.
I feel a more important debate should be the inclusion of the discussed technology in the traditional classroom setting. Consider math books. Students can look in the back of their math books and quickly find answers to problems. In this way, the back of the math book is comparable to a quick internet search.
The search may result in an answer, and it may even be the correct answer, but the students may still misunderstand the concept. Learning involves building the path from problem to solution. Teaching students how to search effectively, and, more importantly, how to organize and sort the mixture of information they find, would utilize technology while still emphasizing the importance of personal logic and understanding.
I would love to hear from others on this topic. Would teaching students the proper and most effective use for technology be more beneficial than its restriction?
Peter Simones
http://www.Cramster.com/
Posted by: Peter Simones | December 4, 2008 7:58 AM
Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that all facts are useless and a waste of time to learn. I do believe, however, for most of the classrooms around the world the model of pedagogy has remained the same for centuries. Teachers stand at the front of the class, spouting facts, figures and dates. Students demonstrate they have “learned” when they can regurgitate these facts on exams. I describe this model as being “teacher focused.” It is also outdated.
The better model is “student focused.” Kids memorize fewer facts but acquire more knowledge. They learn how to think, communicate, solve tough problems (from math to society), put things in context, and work in groups. Learning excites them, and they acquire an appetite to keep on learning throughout their lives. This works out well, because almost all workers in the digital economy will need to constantly relearn as their jobs evolve or simplify disappear through ever-faster Schumpeterian creative destruction.
Moreover, the factoids that students should learn could be acquired in a much more efficient manner than is typically the case today. Instead of delivering a one-size-fits-all form of education, schools should customize the education to fit each child’s ability and way of learning. Software can easily teach facts to kids and quiz them as they progress. When a student does poorly in one area, that material is retaught. Meanwhile, the teacher is freed up to spend more one-on-one time with each student.
Posted by: Don Tapscott | December 4, 2008 9:08 AM
@ Micheal 40 - for me you really nailed it
"He also makes a questionable distinction between memorization and rote learning (related perhaps but not the same)" Absolutely.
But there is more going on here. Without trying, I memorize information I use frequently. I memorize information purposefully that I believe will benefit me (help me understand, solve, work efficiently). I memorize things I really care deeply about very quickly. I memorize things laboriously when for some reason I just want to be able to whip it out (poem, turn of phrase, quote, joke, new word, etc)
I'm a lifelong learner. I memorize when it helps me learn, think, understand and make sense of the world. Or when I just want to be able to recall.
Posted by: Matt Whiteside | December 5, 2008 10:16 PM
I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Cairns. In fact, there are other scholars, writers, and researchers (as well as a professor of Computer science) who agree with him and I wrote about this subject a few months ago in my blog, NanoWeek: "Personal Super Computers, AI, and What Does That Have To Do With the Future of Education In A Web 2.0 World?"
http://tinyurl.com/59gcln
Please enjoy reading it and feel free to comment.
Posted by: Melanie Reed | December 6, 2008 11:42 AM
The issue of memorization is obviously not the same across all domains. For certain domains, I agree that memorization is not as important as it once was, or at least, as it was once mistakenly thought to be.
But in some domains declarative knowledge is essential in a way that is unlikely to change. The most obvious example is language learning. The only way to read a Chinese newspaper is to memorize thousands of characters; the only way to speak Japanese is to memorize thousands of words to the point of automatic recall.
That is why we at Cerego decided to focus on language learning when we built our suite of declarative memory-focused learning tools:
http://www.iknow.co.jp
Posted by: russ | December 7, 2008 6:22 AM
Unfortunately, the opening sentence...
Memorization is a waste of time when Google is only a a few clicks away. That's what Don Tapscott, author of the bestselling books Wikinomics and Growing Up Digital, believes
..is inaccurate. Don believes that facts are important as the bedrock of intelligence (he is a huge supporter of a Liberal Arts education); he disagrees with forced rote learning.
Dislosure: I worked with Don on the underlying research to Grown Up Digital
Posted by: Mike Dover | December 8, 2008 11:23 AM
Please excuse the typo on disclosure.
Posted by: Mike Dover | December 8, 2008 11:24 AM
I am assuming that everyone who is commenting is in some sort of education field and has been out of early schooling for quite some time. I agree that memorization skills are a must for kids but from the sounds of it educators assume that they are the only means of said teaching.
When a kid decides that something is interesting or worth their time then they will memorize it. Skateboarding, video games, addresses, music lyrics, instructions on how to build ...whatever. I have seen them do it a million times. It is when they have to memorize the "Seige of Rome" that they glass over and say "I can just Google that". The point is it's the kids that want to know about the "Siege of Rome" will memorize it. Ask a student that has memorized it 3 years later if they can recall everything and they won't be able to. Ask them to sing the lyrics of Avril Lavine's first single and I bet they would be able to word for word along with humming the tune.
Posted by: Tyler | December 8, 2008 3:15 PM
I fully agree with Tapscott on this topic. Technology is at a point now where it has almost made paper books obsolete. The need to memorize is obsolete along with them. In todays professional world there is an abundance of information that can be utilized. Students need to be taught how to cipher through the information in order to pick and choose so when the transition from school to work occurs, they are one step ahead. Memorizing is useless now, and need to memorize in the real world is not too frequent when the answer can simply be found using technology. Someday I would not be surprised if information can be directly downloaded into students brains, but right now, there is no doubt a necessary shift from old ways of teaching.
Posted by: Matt Semmelrock | December 13, 2008 1:11 PM
I'd have to agree with Richard Cairn's statement at the end of the article - although I would have to add that in order to engage in discussions and make informed decisions, the skills to internally process any type of information (memorized or not) are even more important than the source or amount of data itself. It scares me reading that the internet revolution reduces kids' ability to read body language and to make offline friends. If we support this, we will only fuel the tendency to live our entire lives in a virtual world rather than in the real world. And frankly, I'm quite happy to do my own independent research rather than blindly trusting everything wikipedia tells me is "fact"!
Posted by: Josh | December 15, 2008 12:27 PM