Readers Edition

Much has been in recent years on education and education reform talk. The Pisa test showed is that even in Germany's education woes. Experts like Don Tapscott, author of the bestseller "Wikinomics" and "Growing Up Digital", so to speak openly for reform of the global education system from "Memorization is a waste of time when Google is only a few clicks away."

Tapscott, seen by many as the commentator of today's Internet age views, sees the end of learning by memorizing information came. Much more important is it to teach students to think creatively and the knowledge that is available to us to better use. Memorization is a waste of time.

In times of Google, Wikipedia and other online libraries memorization is not necessary anymore. Tapscott, the Times said: "Teachers are no longer the fountain of knowledge, the internet is. (...) Kids should learn about history to understand the world and why things are the way they are. But they do not need to know all the dates. It is enough that they know about the Battle of Hastings, without having to memorize that it was in the 1066th They can look that up and position it in history with a click on Google, "says Tapscott continues.

Learning methods are as always Tapscott no matter the inconveniences. For children in studies, he noted that their knowledge on several occasions always rebuild. Memorizing facts and figures for this would be a mere waste of time. For the older generation Tapscott thesis is certainly shocking. For them, the knowledge of facts and annual figures are still the most important part of their lives. Of course you should set the exact year of a major event to know. Or it just goes from a basic to have a better understanding of a situation and to get its meaning?

Our networked brain

For the current generation of students is "multitasking" prerequisite for a good education and a successful career. They live their digital experience, they write on the internet, surf, listen to music and update their Facebook profile. This flood of information and its impact on our brain is a topic under much education researchers. Are we confused or is our brain to the inflowing stimuli adapted?

A new book, "iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind", the thesis that our exposure to the Internet impact on our brain and its neural pathways.

"Wiring up our brains like this makes us adept at filtering information, making snap decisions, and fielding the incoming digital debris, but sustained concentration, reading body language, and making friends are offline skills that are fading away."

If our brain, in fact, connected again and again, it would not make sense that the way we teach and learn should also be changed is that it allows us is to know us again and again to adapt, instead of rote to learn? Unfortunately, there are not too many people who believe that this is the right way. Most educators, like Richard Cairns, headmaster of Brighton College, an elite British school, are of the opinion that basics are essential. "It is important that children learn the facts. If you have no knowledge in the minds remember, it's not so easy to say in discussion or to make informed decisions," he says.