Lecturer bans students from using Google and Wikipedia

clipped from www.theargus.co.uk A lecturer has criticised students for relying on websites like Google and Wikipedia to do their thinking for them. Professor Tara Brabazon, from the University of Brighton, said too many young people around the world were taking the easy option when asked to do research and simply repeating the first things they found on internet searches. Prof Brabazon said: "The education world has pursued new technology with an almost evangelical zeal and it is time to take a step back and give proper consideration of how we use it. "I ban my students from using Google, Wikipedia and other websites like that. I give them a reading list to work from and expect them to cite a good number of them in any work they produce." She said: "I want students to sit down and read. It's not the same when you read it online. I want them to experience the pages and the print as much as the digitisation and the pixels. Both are fine but I want them to have both, not one or the other, not a cheap solution."