One of the people I follow on Twitter sent the following tweet;

“If you can google it, it shouldn’t be on a test.”

To which I simply replied;

“Nonsense”

What made me say that, apart from being in a bit of a grumpy mood that day?

Education is not about the learner cramming their head with facts, figures and information which they then regurgitate in a test or exam. That is a feature which marred the schooling of many during the latter years of the last century. There is far too much knowledge out there for it to fit meaningfully into a young adult’s brain.

As a middle-aged adult, I know that much of the ‘stuff’ we were taught in school has never been used, or hardly ever used, since. So what was the purpose of the teacher spending time teaching it? Surely that time could have been better spent teaching something else? It seems the only purpose for teaching some things was so that we could reiterate it in a test or examination.

21^st Century learning, if I may use such a grandiose and overused phrase, is not about cramming a learner with facts and figures; 21^st century learning is about using tools to find the answers or information you need. I will say now that those tools are not just technological tools; face-to-face meetings, conversations, dialogue, debates etc., are all included but the technological tools provide a modern and versatile way of accessing and using the information. One of the key technological tools is, of course, the internet search engine, such as Google.

It often appears that while learning in the 21^st century is changing, our methods of assessment are changing only very slowly. Our assessments still seem to be dominated by tests and exams that are still wedged in old 20^th century methods. Indeed, it might even be argued that education as a whole has been held back in its development by the need to produce good SAT and examination results.

So why did I object to the tweet? I did so because it seems to me that the message is basically saying that learners should not use an internet search engine to help them find their answer to a problem. I also object because it seems to represent an old view of testing.

Obviously, the tweet was presented without any context and this is often a problem with Twitter. The same tweet could be interpreted differently by other people. I do apologise to the person who made the original statement if there has been any misunderstanding on my part.

(image by dullhunk)

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