Originally Posted by
Pontius Navigator
They are 'research' papers only so far as that person has 'searched' the archives. Or so it seems to me
Yes in that respect I would tend to agree. But my main complaint is that, because the information is not hard won, they take no ownership of it, they often do not even have a superficial understanding. I don't know, say we are looking at Simple Harmonic Motion in class. We go through the theory, examples, problems etc. Now the web has a wealth of information out there, including some excellent interactive apps to help develop understanding. But they wont use it effectively. If we are lucky they do a cursory search, settle for the first thing they find rather than use the many different presentations to compare, contrast, challenge and then deepen their understanding.
I can't help but feel there is a prevailing attitude at work -"it's there on the web I don't need to understand it just know where it is". Now yes, the web should mean the end of having to recall facts/figures just for the sake of it - but it should not replace the need to master those facts. I'd like to think that the engineers who designed my aircraft had a thorough understanding of finite element analysis and didn't simply use a look up table from the web! I think it's this same attitude we are seeing in the press. Equally, we may well just be grumpy old men
