Last week I was reading this article in which a Professor argues that students should be allowed to take smartphones and laptops into exams: –

Professor Mazur urged academics to take the next leap allowing students to use their laptops and phones in exams. He himself encourages students to bring their mobile devices into exams to “look up whatever you want, whenever you want” arguing that in the era of the Google search, students “don’t need to memorize anything.”

Now I don’t completely agree with saying that students don’t need to memorise anything but I do agree with the following statement: –

…he prefers students to be creative and use critical thinking and other analytical skills.

Analytical skills are absolutely critical to any IT professional. The ability to figure out what the problem is, research, and then deploy a solution (with a rollback in mind) is pretty much a cornerstone of what we do.

Ok, I fully admit that “googling” an issue doesn’t appear to be much of a skill but if you think about it, yes it is. Googling follows the same exact analytical procedure I identified above; figuring out the problem, searching for a solution and then identifying the correct one from the results.

However, a certain amount of base knowledge is required for this process. You need knowledge of the systems that you work with in order to identify the solution. Blindly googling and deploying the first solution displayed is a recipe for disaster.

Have a good week!