Cihanyesilmen’s Weblog

Reading trough this week’s virtual session “Internet Research” the first point which came to my mind was: “there is much more possibility for an appropriate internet research than just using google“.  Namely, to be honest, the only  search engine I use when I need to research for a presentation or for any other task, is google.  I think especially this virtual session is very useful for us students who use the net daily for getting information. One gets to know the different search engines which one can use such as

• search engines
• meta-search engines
• catalogues

and their pros and cons concerning the searching for special information. You realize that sometimes it is more useful for your research to consider other search engines because the search engine you are using may  not distinguish between reliable and unrelable information.  Especially for students it is more comfort and easier to consider the first results in google. What we don’t know is, that these results may be conmpletly misleading for our research topic.

This is why I think that it is importtant for students to at least know where and how to use also different search engines.

I feel  a pressure as if I have to write about the practical task no. 6.

Already in class, when we were looking around to make our own opinions about the topics on the posters of the other groups, this poster was eye-catching to me. It´s not the appearance of the poster which is striking me, NO, it´s the statement which is bothering me :

A 1996 poll of US teachers found that they ranked computer skills and media technology as more ‘essential’ than the study of European history, biology, chemistry, and physics; than dealing with social problems such as drugs and family breakdown; than learning practical job skills; and than reading modern American writers such as Steinbeck and Hemmingway or classic ones such as Plato and Shakespeare. (The Atlantic Monthly, July 1997.)

How can someone who has studied for many years be that ignorant and that arrogant to affirm that computer skills and media technology are the most essential things to learn at school?

I think those who talk big aren’t really  clear in their minds, what they are talking about. It is unbelievable that there exist so called “teachers”  who  are able to rank computer skills and technology more essential as social behavior. I wonder how the world  would look like if really every single person would have this opinion.  People would not be the same as they are today. Humans do have social aptitudes. This is what  differentiates us from other creatures. I think  you will only get the best results in competence and specific skills, such as computer skills, if you have a problem-free head. And this head is only producible when we talk to each other, to solve the probems.

This declaration is for me a kind of provokative statement. If this statement would be the reality I wonder how Einstein and Shakespeare and others had a chance of becoming genies at all. What about the past in which there was not such an easy utilisation of computers and other technical equipment? Were they all stupid just because they prioritized differently?