Google 'should be allowed in examinations'

[Fly Fishin']

I was allowed to use cheat sheets on all my finals in SAIT on the grounds that they are our notes and you would have access to all this info in the office...needless to say I rolled out a 4.0 GPA by the end....but some still failed.

[HiTempguy1]

Originally posted by Disoblige
How did I know clicking into this thread again that HiTempguy1 was going to mention engineering.. Haha


If it was your job? No. I know what you're trying to get at, but this was a pretty bad example. If you have no idea how to do brakes, and watched a video on how to do them, no you are not classified as "qualified".

And your coding example, what exactly do you mean? Are you saying that you would be able to do the job as well, just slower? Slower because you're spending all your time Googling this shit?



Quoting this because I agree with it.

I could have said BSc in computer sciences, but that is way too long to type Its simply a direct comparison is all that is a relevent example

As for qualified, well, says you. I don't believe you have to be indentured in the trade to be paid to work on cars. It sure helps with your credibility, but to assume someone is incompetent in something because they don't have a piece of paper is a humorous attitude to take (one seen a lot on beyond though). I'm more qualified to work on cars than a lot of jmen out there, but I don't have my ticket

You'd be lying if you said you've never googled something work related, but again, #typicalbeyond. But no, thats not what I am really saying. The concept is that with the added knowledge of google, you might be able to produce the same result as someone with that knowledge already. And if you are willing to accept less pay, then why wouldn't a company hire you?

[Disoblige]

Originally posted by HiTempguy1

As for qualified, well, says you. I don't believe you have to be indentured in the trade to be paid to work on cars. It sure helps with your credibility, but to assume someone is incompetent in something because they don't have a piece of paper is a humorous attitude to take (one seen a lot on beyond though). I'm more qualified to work on cars than a lot of jmen out there, but I don't have my ticket

So how is an employer supposed to hire you? Based on? Maybe they'll ask you, "Hey, can you explain the process you would go through when changing brakes?" What are you going to say? "Oh uhh, I never done it before, but I am very mechanically inclined because I can do this, this, and this. But I could easily just Google it and figure it out.".. Yeah, good luck haha.

Originally posted by HiTempguy1

You'd be lying if you said you've never googled something work related, but again, #typicalbeyond. But no, thats not what I am really saying. The concept is that with the added knowledge of google, you might be able to produce the same result as someone with that knowledge already. And if you are willing to accept less pay, then why wouldn't a company hire you?

I use Google for work all the time, but I don't agree with what you said below.

Originally posted by HiTempguy1
Not better (necessarily), just faster. Hence, he is worth more per hour. Nobody cares HOW he gets it done, just that he does and it is correct.

I would say that most companies do care how it gets done. The work should be done correctly, but also efficiently (time, cost), and more importantly, safe. Without experience and if you're just Googling shit, you might disregard a lot of important aspects of the work that could hinder your efficiency and safety. Again, refer to Manhattan's post.

If we are going to use Engineering as an example, how about the difference from a field engineer vs. engineer in the office with no field experience? Do you think a field engineer with that experience is much more helpful than someone who doesn't have it? The engineer in the office could be very sufficient at Google, but to be honest would still be miles away from the engineer with experience in the field who actually dealt with Operations and Maintenance and on-site projects.

[NoPulp]

I wouldn't want google in my examination.

Its important for me to actually learn what I'm paying to learn. Exams aren't difficult.... I wouldn't have benifited from Google much. Many of my classes have very little available on the internet such as thermodynamics and vibrations anyways.

It also gives some credibility to yourself if you passed without google. Should the moron trying to be a doctor pass an examination because he can use Google effectively? I'd rather not have that person preform surgery on me...

[Mibz]

Originally posted by sputnik
Noting infuriates me more than a colleague who refuses to Google an error message from a log file and instead randomly clicks or modifies configuration files hoping to fix something.

"Hey guys, a few months ago something broke so I changed 12 settings all at once and fixed it so if I ever see another problem I'm going to change those same 12 settings again".

[BavarianBeast]

Google wouldn't of helped me very much with most of the exams I wrote in university. Most of the material was very complex and answers couldn't of been found with a google search.

You also wouldn't have enough time to google and find the answers to 100 questions in a 2 hour period if you didn't know any of the material.

[A790]

Originally posted by NoPulp
Should the moron trying to be a doctor pass an examination because he can use Google effectively? I'd rather not have that person preform surgery on me...

Obviously a layer of common sense would need to apply.

[rx7_turbo2]

Originally posted by Disoblige
I would say that most companies do care how it gets done. The work should be done correctly, but also efficiently (time, cost), and more importantly, safe. Without experience and if you're just Googling shit, you might disregard a lot of important aspects of the work that could hinder your efficiency and safety.

I tend to agree. Google can be a valuable tool. But just a tool, it cannot replace fundamental knowledge. A solid fundamental knowledge of a subject and an ability to use other resources including Google is of great benefit. The ability to use Google without a reasonable understanding of the subject matter can be extremely dangerous.

[blitz]

I had teachers in school that would allow you to use your textbooks for exams, but they were structured in such a way that if you generally would only get 50% of the exam done if you actually had to rely on looking things up. We actually started preferring his closed book exams because they were significantly shorter and easier.

Same thing could be applied here.

[Recca168]

In principal allowing google in an exam just makes it an open book exam with an extremely large textbook. It "should" allow a student to find/filter/apply information to solve a problem which demonstrates critical thinking and problem solving skills.

However with the internet the way it is, I think allowing google in an exam in most cases would just promote actual cheating.

[rx7_turbo2]

Originally posted by blitz
I had teachers in school that would allow you to use your textbooks for exams, but they were structured in such a way that if you generally would only get 50% of the exam done if you actually had to rely on looking things up. We actually started preferring his closed book exams because they were significantly shorter and easier.

Same thing could be applied here.

Open book exams aren't all they're cracked up to be for sure.

At trade school our Code exams and even our TQ exams were open book in terms of access to the Canadian Electrical Code. If you didn't know what you were doing in terms of where to look in the book and how to interpret what you found, you'd have been screwed, despite the fact all the answers were right in front of you.

[SOAB]

I took a financial math course at SAIT and the instructor told us straight up that there were no marks for assignments and that our mid-term and final would determine our marks. he also stated that they would be open book.

when it came time for the exams, if you didn't do the work and know the math or where to find the equations, you failed. it didn't matter that the exams were open book.

[sexualbanana]

Originally posted by BavarianBeast
Google wouldn't of helped me very much with most of the exams I wrote in university. Most of the material was very complex and answers couldn't of been found with a google search.

First, I will take the stance of a grammar Nazi and point out that Google also didn't help you learn to distinguish "would of" and "would have". Sorry, it's a major pet peeve of mine to see that.

With that said, allowing students to use google during a test, in my opinion, is going to help the student learn the fundamental principles behind what they're learning.

For example, I remember when the exams for one of my classes were notorious for being ridiculously difficult. Students would bitch and moan that a lot of the material wasn't covered in class or on any example questions. Every time, the Professor would counter with a simple 'yes, it is', and he was right. It wasn't a simple case of 'calculate this from chapter 1' as it is in our example questions, but a combination of 'Calculate this answer using concepts from chapter 7. But using these values from chapter 1.' Which is a structure that only someone who understood the content would see and understand. Where most people got held up in the exam was 'this question involves chapter 7, but I'm given info from chapters 1 and 2. Wtf?'

Is it a pain in the ass? Yes. Does it make the exam a million times harder? It should. But if your goal is to encourage the development of actual knowledge of a subject, it's probably way more effective (but way more laborious) than the simple regurgitation of facts, which then Google makes far too easy.

[[GaGe]]

No way... if they opened up Google for exams, then Prof would stop using previous exam questions. More work for me haha.

[ROBOCOP]

I think it should be allowed. More times than not you get these dick head engineering profs on their high horse making you memorize shit that's convoluted and readily available anytime such as trig identities or some other formula. Sure you can waste time deriving it or you memorize it but the moment you forget a small thing in the equation you're looking at getting at most 25% for that now "wrong" answer. I think this would give check and balance to bullshit like that. Of course, in some engineering course, google will NOT help you pass an exam if you actually don't know wtf is going on so I'm not too worried.

[flipstah]

Originally posted by blitz
I had teachers in school that would allow you to use your textbooks for exams, but they were structured in such a way that if you generally would only get 50% of the exam done if you actually had to rely on looking things up. We actually started preferring his closed book exams because they were significantly shorter and easier.

Same thing could be applied here.

Yup. Open book exams are the worst. Majority of the time is spent flipping pages, looking for answers.

Eff that.

[Rat Fink]

.

[Gman.45]

Rat, I used to agree with that 110%. All the way. Recently however...



I started taking some distance learning courses after being put on permanent disability and being bored out of my tree. You can only watch SG-1 save the world so many times before you consider blowing your brains out. So I signed up for Stanford University's AI lab distance learning under Prof Sebastian Thrun. His work has been instrumental in creating self driving cars (read Google insider etc).

Anyhow, he told me personally that he subscribes to what Einstein said, that if you waste neurons memorizing formulas and stuff that you can simply look up with source material to hand, that leaves a lot of brain power left over to work on using said sources, formulas, equations, and whatever. And believe me, some of the math in these courses is brain baking, the early graduate level stuff I'll freely admit to being completely out of my depth, and without help, such as Google, other students, and so on, I'd be completely useless. As it happens, by using such tools, I've contributed (slightly)to some pretty interesting and important new things but more importantly have been able to remain present and watch the magic smarter people have spun, where as back when I first entered tech school/university back in 1991, I would have likely been "failed out" due to poor marks, as not having Google, the net, and so on around to help search out solutions to problems = no or wrong answer on the old paper tests.


Incidentally, I met a student from Iran back in 91 in a Computer Eng course at SAIT. He showed me how he could write 4 lines of formulas and "cheat notes" on each of the 8 sides of a clear bic pen, using another pen with a sharp needle melted into the end, to create a poor mans scribe. I was terrified of getting caught cheating, and never tried it, but I could see him merrily twirling his pen reading away when he would get stuck on test questions. Sort of an analogue version of using Google during tests, isn't it?

[jwslam]

^ Precisely

There's a big difference between UNDERSTANDING how to solve a problem vs. KNOWING THE SOLUTION to a problem.

For example (probably really bad because I'm nowhere near interested in this shits), is it important to know the precise dates that things happened during WWII, or the understanding of how one event escalated in sequence to the next? Is it important to know the names of the guys or to understand how they guy from which country did what and had what outcome?