Full access to the internet during exams.

[FordSVT]

Just wait until you can access the Internet or whatever it evolves into directly through our brains and/or virtual displays and environments. It will revolutionize teaching and professions in ways unseen since the Renaissance.

I suspect that frequent use of information imparts itself naturally anyway whether you memorized it for a test or simply dealt with it often, and I don't think we have to worry about a surgeon operating on you who just looked up how to do it on the Internet. Experience and knowledge will always count for something, and I think being able to access the steady flow of information around us is becoming more important as the years go by.

 

[nevermore]

It is a critical part of science that ideas that are taken for granted are examined and reexamined, worked-out and re-worked-out. So yes, it does matter, and people have to know how to work things out for themselves.

Somewhat agree. But I feel that for the most part we trust established truths without making a personal in depth examination of them. As a skill, being able to work stuff out for oneself is a relatively minor part of life. Especially as I anticipate the future will provide us with an increasing amount of technology that works things out for us.

And you see this as a good thing?

Being able to work things out for oneself (which requires knowledge of underlying principles and facts) is a critical skill for intelligent engagement in all aspects of life. The fact that most people either don't or can't do so is an enormous problem in today's society because it allows people in positions of authority to assert whatever the fuck they want, control the dialog and get away with it. Not thinking things out for yourself is a lazy, irresponsible and pathetic way to go through life; and to simply accept and even encourage that is perhaps the most irresponsible suggestion one can make. I'm horrified that anyone would assert that critical thought is a "relatively minor part of life" and that that is ok because the interweb will just tell you what you need to know. Talk about dumbing society right the fuck down to the bone. Jesus.

 

[Holdfast]

I'm of two minds about this.

On one hand, I regularly use the internet to quickly research stuff both in my personal and work life. There are loads of things I don't bother to learn or remember because I can always look them up. I also think that the general trend is an externalisation of knowledge, and I have used my internet enabled PDA phone extensively in this regard for years.

On the other hand, I know that in order interpret the information I find online, I needed to acquire some fairly rigorous theoretical knowledge. Without that theoretical framework, my ability to judge what to trust, how much to trust it, and how to weigh up contrasting opinions, would be seriously impaired.

I guess that a good compromise would be to gradually introduce its use, as one moves up the food chain, much like how calculators are used - ie not at the start of school, but only when you've proved you've acquired the basics.

But that's just my initial thought. I'll have to wait until this thread runs its full course before I can decide for sure.......

 

[USS Triumphant]

I don't like how kids these days are allowed to use power tools in shop class.

The difference is that the kids in shop class are generally taught ways that they could do what they need to without the power tools using unpowered hand tools. The power tools just make it faster and more convenient. Replicating humanity's knowledge of physics, math, history, etc, without access to the Internet, a well-stocked library, or the knowledge already in your head from study would take considerably longer, to say the least.

I'm not suggesting that everyone should try to cram everything in their heads "just in case", but I strongly believe that everyone should have a skill that would stand them in good standing if modern civilization fell. I, for instance, know a couple of ways to generate electrical current from natural components if it were needed.

 

[Small White Car]

As someone said, the hardest test I've taken in my life were 'take home' exams.

If someone can tell me how this is any different, I'm all ears.

The hard part of school isn't memorization, but comprehension. If your test really is just based on memorization, you went to a crappy school.

 

[TheGodBen]

I'm not suggesting that everyone should try to cram everything in their heads "just in case", but I strongly believe that everyone should have a skill that would stand them in good standing if modern civilization fell. I, for instance, know a couple of ways to generate electrical current from natural components if it were needed.

Hey, that's going to be my trick!

I should also be able to design an internal combustion engine with a bit of luck, the tricky part is going to be finding someone who knows how to drill and refine oil.

 

[Rii]

It is a critical part of science that ideas that are taken for granted are examined and reexamined, worked-out and re-worked-out. So yes, it does matter, and people have to know how to work things out for themselves.

Somewhat agree. But I feel that for the most part we trust established truths without making a personal in depth examination of them. As a skill, being able to work stuff out for oneself is a relatively minor part of life. Especially as I anticipate the future will provide us with an increasing amount of technology that works things out for us.

And you see this as a good thing?

Being able to work things out for oneself (which requires knowledge of underlying principles and facts) is a critical skill for intelligent engagement in all aspects of life. The fact that most people either don't or can't do so is an enormous problem in today's society because it allows people in positions of authority to assert whatever the fuck they want, control the dialog and get away with it. Not thinking things out for yourself is a lazy, irresponsible and pathetic way to go through life; and to simply accept and even encourage that is perhaps the most irresponsible suggestion one can make. I'm horrified that anyone would assert that critical thought is a "relatively minor part of life" and that that is ok because the interweb will just tell you what you need to know. Talk about dumbing society right the fuck down to the bone. Jesus.

It may not be laudable, but it's reality. If each of us were to start from first principles perhaps one-in-ten would get as far as the wheel before death. Understanding should be encouraged, but as a practical matter we simply have to accept most of what we're given at face value, applying various fallible heuristics to assess reliability, coherency, etc. There is no solution to the evil daemon and Descartes was right to fret about its implications for science and all human knowledge, yet we get by.

 

[Jadzia]

Somewhat agree. But I feel that for the most part we trust established truths without making a personal in depth examination of them.

And you see this as a good thing?

It may not be laudable, but it's reality. If each of us were to start from first principles perhaps one-in-ten would get as far as the wheel before death. Understanding should be encouraged, but as a practical matter we simply have to accept most of what we're given at face value, applying various fallible heuristics to assess reliability, coherency, etc. There is no solution to the evil daemon and Descartes was right to fret about its implications for science and all human knowledge, yet we get by.

Yes, this is on par with what I'm saying. And as I said initially, I'm presenting this as my prediction of what is to come; I'm not promoting non-learning.

Being able to work things out for oneself (which requires knowledge of underlying principles and facts) is a critical skill for intelligent engagement in all aspects of life.

It may be your desire to have intelligent engagement with others, but you're projecting here. It becomes less of a necessity as society becomes increasingly mechanised. If people can get by in life without having to think about things, then they will. If people can press buttons which answer questions for them, then they will.

 

[FPAlpha]

When i was studying to become an engineer we were allowed to bring in a self written sheet of paper (back and front) with everything we wanted to the exam.

The reasoning was quite simple.. we were not expected to memorize every single formula or chart but we had to know how to apply the knowledge to a problem. That was the central part.. learning how to approach and solve a problem and not mindlessly learning a series of formulas and processess (in work life you can always look these up).

Interesting sidevfact was that the timeframe of the exam was not extended so if you spent half your time looking at the sheet you wouldn't get the whole exam done on time and lose out on points so it would have paid of to at least memorize the most important formulas and such

 

[FordSVT]

And you see this as a good thing?

It may not be laudable, but it's reality. If each of us were to start from first principles perhaps one-in-ten would get as far as the wheel before death. Understanding should be encouraged, but as a practical matter we simply have to accept most of what we're given at face value, applying various fallible heuristics to assess reliability, coherency, etc. There is no solution to the evil daemon and Descartes was right to fret about its implications for science and all human knowledge, yet we get by.

Yes, this is on par with what I'm saying. And as I said initially, I'm presenting this as my prediction of what is to come; I'm not promoting non-learning.

Being able to work things out for oneself (which requires knowledge of underlying principles and facts) is a critical skill for intelligent engagement in all aspects of life.

It may be your desire to have intelligent engagement with others, but you're projecting here. It becomes less of a necessity as society becomes increasingly mechanised. If people can get by in life without having to think about things, then they will. If people can press buttons which answer questions for them, then they will.

How many people know how the vehicle they drive to work every day works? Why should they? I say that as a self-proclaimed "car guy" who does know.

People should know how to think critically, and if someone is an expert in their field they should know the relevant, important information off-hand. As has been said, you can't reference how to react in a situation as a police officer on the fly, or learn how to be a surgeon just by reading about it.

As an example, a general auto mechanic would know how to fix cars but he still has to use the manuals for each car unless he worked on several of them before. People will still have to know facts and information in the future but they will be expected to utilize the information networks available to them in order to make the most informed choices possible. The only difference between that and the past is that people didn't have easy access to information that might have been relevant.

The education system has to change in order to acknowledge the information age. That doesn't mean I think memorization of certain facts is no longer appropriate, it means I think the old way of doing things has to be met with new ideas. "An EMP bomb could make us all stupid" is not an argument, otherwise we should start teaching our kids to make fire, hunt and skin animals in school in case society collapses.

People in the past and now aren't much different and if anything people today know MORE than ever before. But most people are concerned with information that relates directly to their daily life and their jobs and families and that's about it. It's been like that for 5000 years and isn't going to change any time soon as much as we'd all love to imagine a world where everyone had an acute interest in science, philosophy, history and politics.

 

[RoJoHen]

It really depends on the format of the test and subject, I think. I think it's absurd to expect people to memorize how to do every little thing in their field, when in the real world they will likely have access to reference materials.

I think that all tests, especially in the math and science field, should be open-book/open-note (the idea of memorizing formulas has always been a really annoying concept for me). Open internet? Not sure. I would have to see how the test was written.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I think allowing internet access depends on the type of exam. If you were going to allow open book exams previously, allowing the internet is simply more efficient. If you want to test based on rote memorization, allowing the internet is the dumbest idea ever.

I've had history exams that are take home. I've relied on class notes, my textbook(s), and even wikipedia or google searches. If I cite something, it's from a textbook or notes, of course, but for general context, the internet is helpful.

So I'm not appalled by this idea, provided they do it right.

 

[Miss Chicken]

Thinking back to the course I did there were units that we did have exams on during which we used the internet (even though the teacher did not call these exams they were).

For example we had a unit called "Providing Clients with Information". We had some questios which were meant to be handed to us by clients and we had had two hours to provide answers. We were allowed to use the internet or the library to locate suitable information and then we had to provide the client with a list of resources on their topic.