Yahoo Answers

My goodness,

Sometimes I think this place is bad, I recently started hanging out at yahoo answers (I'm a google guy myself, never really used yahoo. Ever.). The site is plagued with lazy people, it's terrible. Not to mention it's largely admin-free.

Some examples, and it wasn't hard to find:

Quote:

---

Write the following number in words?

---

there is no number...

Quote:

---

Help me please with my math i cant do it?

14: Sarah likes to wear green. Of her 12 dresses, 3/4 of them are green. How many dresses is that?
9
8
16
10

---

Are you serious? People can use a computer, cut and paste homework but not work out 3/4 of 12?!

Quote:

---

What are the phases of java program???

---

Google!?

Quote:

---

Another problem?
A cylindrical water tank can held 1000 L of water. Determine it's diameter if it's 1.5 m tall?

---

...

People seem to just post their homework, and people actually do it (yes, all of it -- with working). My point is, what is going to happen in 10-15 years?! I've never considered myself smart, but I'd like to think I'm resourceful. And this scares me!

Very well a lot of you work as Senior Software Engineers etc, but what do you think will happen when these "kids" get "degrees", and come round to your company? Do you think that the internet is making people lazy? I'd really like to know, the internet only just started to come out when I was growing up. Will the next generation be a generation of morons? (minus a small %).

If you couple that with governmental programs like we have here in which kids from 7th grade to 12th grade are given free(!) laptops with internet access, you'll get even more scared.

If then you add to the equation the fact parents work 9 to 5, or 9 to 6 if you will, when they are not working overtime, and they come home increasingly tired over a world ever more competitive and unresponsive to the possibility of helping with their kids school tasks, you'll get even more scared.

If then on top of that, you add the fact, internet usage is mostly language dependent and some countries don't even have proper educational content on their native tongue, you'll get even more scared.

And if it's not enough, schools around the world actively encourage computer usage as a learning tool, forgetting the lack of content, not administering any filtering or controlling access to the content on the internet. That is also scary.

Other traditional learning centers like libraries also migrated to computer and internet usage, providing free access for an hour or two at a time, without any sort of filtering where the most used application inside a library these days is Messenger. People line up for their turn, where the book rooms are now more empty than they ever were before. That is also scary.

As bleak as it may seem, there will always be smart students who know how to tell an apple from an orange and use the internet as a learning medium in a responsible manner. But, we are also breeding a huge crowd of complete lazy ignorants that will eventually one day hit the job market.

Who are these people who run the internet answering machine? Let's give them jobs.

There's a reason to want computers out of the classroom, but mostly I'm hoping we figure out an education program that encourages people to learn and become somewhat self-reliant as opposed to resourceful. Part of self-reliance is that pupils should be taught how to work without digital tools and instead try to communicate as well. I would argue that the kids are resourceful since, yeah, they're cheating, but it is as much a resource.

People are just beginning to realize how hard it is to improve education in a digitally pervasive age.

Quote:

---

but what do you think will happen when these "kids" get "degrees", and come round to your company?

---

Marks mean nothing really. Sure they look good on a CV, but w/o knowing what you're on about you wont pass a simple competence test. And anyone that manages to land a job they cant handle will soon get sacked.

Also, I think that 3/4 of 12 question was probably posted by an 8 year old. In which case, like citizen said, he would at least be resourceful.

Well, I wouldn't put much importance on their resourcefulness level when asking someone else to do their homework on the internet. As far as I'm concerned that is instead smartarseness. Which on my case would be met with double homework next time with no computer so that the little prick learned his lesson.

There's resourcefulness worth a pat in the back, and then there's resourcefulness worth a punishment.

>> There's resourcefulness worth a pat in the back
on the back...

I actually do not see the harm in school students asking for help with homework, as long as they show some effort on their part.

It works a bit like Cboard. Nobody here will write a program for a person, and likewise anyone on yahoo who writes a 2000 word essay for a school student who hasnt even attempted it themselves is rather silly.

You have to show you try before anyone can help, but in some cases, it seems some people will help others online no matter if they show effort or not. Not that there is anything wrong here, its just what happens when the person they helped goes back to school and gets an A? Will they post back and thank them?

> It works a bit like Cboard. Nobody here will write a program for a person, and likewise anyone on yahoo who writes a 2000 word essay for a school student who hasnt even attempted it themselves is rather silly.

Yes, but the problem is; people do. And not just the odd one or two either (as on here ;)).