The times they are a changing...

So I was talking with a co-worker the other day and he was telling me about a book he was reading. The book was "All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum. In the book, Fulgham explains, through life experiences of his own, how all of the life skills that you need to survive are learned in kindergarten and how everything after that point is just supplemental "icing on the cake" as they say.

This title, for whatever reason, stuck in my mind for about a week after having the conversation. Now I remember seeing posters for that same book in the school library when I was in elementary school but I never really thought too much into it until now. The reason it stuck with me is because I think Mr. Fulgham should write a new book, a revision of sorts, and title it, "All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned from Google".

I mean, let's get serious. When I was younger and would ask my Dad a question about something his reply would always be "Look it up!" To this day he still says that when I ask him a question, but then I pull out my iPhone and "Google" whatever my inquiry is. Sure Wikipedia is up there as far as "credible" resources too but the initial search entry usually belongs to Google.

I guess all of this never really struck me until I started working in a middle school classroom where computer use is a daily activity and watching the frequency with which Google is used among my students. It's second nature now. I still remember when we used Encyclopedia Britanica and World Book for research. It's rather mind boggling to think that less than two decades ago a teacher believed that everything a student needed to know in order to write a "report" could be find in any one book of a 20-15 volume set of them. If Google published it's own encyclopedia today it would probably require that the entire Amazon rain forest be cut down just to print all of the NEW material that has come out since I was in high school 6 years ago.

I guess this was just more of a random thought of the day post but I think it's an interesting conversation starter to think of how far information gathering has come in only a matter of years.


(.....and now back to your regularly scheduled programming.....)