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Is Google Making us Stupid? February 18, 2009

Posted by afoote in : Knowledge Management , add a comment

In Allan Blagg’s, a student in my IS481 class, comments about Grown Up Digital he referred to “The Atlantic project“ at the website http://thinkagain.theatlantic.com/. The website presents a number of philosophical questions such as – “Is America still the land of opportunity?” and “Why does your dog pretend to like you?”

 

One of the questions of The Atlantic project is – “Is Google making us Stupid?”

To answer this question, the term stupid may need to be defined. Is stupidity the same as ignorance, apathy or just lack of intelligence? What is intelligence?

I am sure that a number of us in the baby boomer generation remember our parents telling us that television will make us stupid. Maybe that is the problem with the world today. We all watched too much television.

 

In the article Is Google making us Stupid?, the author, Nicholas Carr, criticizes the internet and Google for changing the way we think. We skim web pages instead of reading every word. Because of text message and instant messaging, we are reading more, but it is a different type of reading. The internet is causing us to stop read complete books from cover to cover. This is a problem because skimming permits the reader to miss details of the book.

This may be true, but when we consider how much information Google makes available for us you have to wonder how can Google make us stupid. Although Google can make an overwhelming amount of information available to us, there is a personal responsibility to use the information in the appropriate way. That is the individual’s responsibility not Google’s. Personal responsibility has a part in determining if Google makes us stupid.

 

Is Google making us stupid, or is it how we use Google that makes us stupid?

If Google makes us stupid, what would we be if we did not use it?

 

Project & Knowledge Management – Grown Up Digital February 10, 2009

Posted by afoote in : Knowledge Management , add a comment

To start the course IS481 Project and Knowledge Management, the book Grown Up Digital by Don Taspcott was discussed. This book looks at how the Net Generation has grown up in a digital world with the Internet, video games and cell phones.  It discusses their approach to the workplace and to the world of education. During the discussion on education the video of A Vision of Students Today was presented.  This YouTube video is critical of the way students are educated today.  The video suggests that maybe changes are needed to the education process.  Do the same techniques that have been used for the past hundred years still work? Students have grown up with Google, Wikipedia, virtual reality and blogs. They are using them in our classes. Is there a way we can use them in the education process? 

 This may sound like an unusual way to begin an Information Systems course, but this is a KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT course. The education process is one way that we provide knowledge to our students. Another way that knowledge is acquired is through the computer environment and information systems. We need to look at the Internet as a knowledge providing network and how can we use it more effectively to increase knowledge. Our students as members of the Net Generation have already discovered that there is knowledge available on the Internet. Maybe we as faculty should learn how to use the Internet to acquire knowledge and maybe our students should be our teachers.

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