Google Bread

Alas, I am breaking my silence in the blogging world. This one I decided was just too juicy to leave alone - it's another article about another professor out there banning their students from using Google and Wikipedia. Here's the link:

Lecturer Bans Students From Using Google And Wikipedia (from The Argus)

In the article, the professor, Tara Brabazon of the Univ. of Brighton, labels Google the "white bread of the Internet", which drew a good chuckle from my lips as I read. However, the other part of the story that caught my attention was the fact that Prof. Brabazon is a professor of media studies who is banning her students from using a resource provided by the world's largest media company.

Now, I know what the professor is saying - that she feels her students are not properly researching their papers. They are probably not including enough peer-reviewed sources in their bibliographies. But my question is, why then doesn't she just require more sources? Why not give the students a positive admonition, rather than just a negative one that resembles a simple rant against the modern advance of technology.

My view is that knowledge ought to be fluid, open, and above all, free. Knowledge ought not cost us any money. We should not place restrictions on who gets to learn what. And those of us in influential places should work to make sure knowledge is not bound by time or place, either. In my opinion, that's exactly what Google and Wikipedia are doing - they are using technology to bring knowledge freely and quickly to everyone with access to a computer.

Now, obviously, it's what the owner of the computer does with the knowledge that counts. Regurgitating the top 5 links on Google's SERP or an article from Wikipedia is not necessarily good research, but neither is regurgitating an article from the New York Times. One is not worse than the other.