What is the internet?

[Mosaic]

I'm also doing homework.....

[pastafreak]

*splutter*

google it....

[Mosaic]

I apologise for reeling you in Pasta

[Count-A-Strong]

It's a place full of wierdos and not suitable for children and people of a nervous disposition.

[jno]

it's a resource. You can go on the internet and ask questions about your homework. This isn't ethically inferior to looking it up in a book or asking your mum, strangely enough.

[ladyalex]

You raise an interesting question, jno.
What are the ethics of asking you Mum as opposed to asking for answers on answerbank ?

[boxtops]

Aw mosaic, it's a thing round the world, when it was invented the man said it would only need six computers....... LOL

[jno]

ladyalex: or indeed, asking your teacher or a friend or a random stranger in the street. One of the aims of education should surely be not to teach people everything (which is a rather large field), but rather to teach them where to go to find out what they need to know. Finding AB (where there are a lot of people who know a lot of things) and asking questions on it sounds to me like a perfecly legitimate way of doing this.

[ladyalex]

I am inclined to agree wit you , jno.
I've never seen why people get so hot under the collar about posters asking questions on AB......mind you, I do think they should try googling first......

[ladyalex]

or even 'with you '

[jno]

true, ladyalex, but googling can be unreliable - one wrong 'fact' can be cut and pasted across dozens of sites, giving a sort of false positive. So I never really blame people who are a bit wary of it. The whole point of AB is to get live answers to live questions from, hopefully, someone who knows - which is why I frist came on here myself. Those who don't feel like doing homework for others can always ignore the thread, after all.

[ladyalex]

Fair point, jno.

[NazNomad]

This thread was obviously spawned from krista's earlier questions. They asked ...

"what is a victorian governess? history homework again!!!! can someone help me????"

.. then proceeded with , "i know i should but i am 11 and am bored of (sic) the internet so i chat to you people xxx"

This is obviously after krista has trawled the internet and found Answerbank, right?

Now, Googling, "what is a victorian governess?", gives you ample material with which to complete your homework from in the first couple of search results.




... is it just me? Ô¿Ô

[jno]

it does, Naz, if trustworthy. But if you're claiming she's an idle young trollop for coming here to chat...

[NazNomad]

Your words ... I don't recall ever saying or claiming that.

[Mosaic]

what's all this trolloping Jno? We'll have no language on this thread.

Why should youngsters seek good quality first-hand information......why should they learn the difference between asking someone who might be lying or crackers, and using a reliable source of information.......why teach kids not to trust strangers online as you don't know who their talking to but then say, oh yeah but they can give you stuff to cut n paste that'll be OK....

Can't think of a single counter-argument!

[jno]

where are you going to get first-hand information about Victorian governesses? There aren't any left. It's all going to be second hand. And kids will just have to learn to weigh up the value of information obtained online, same as information gained from books. All resources need to be evaluated.

Talking in open forums like this doesn't leave much scope for being groomed by paedophiles, and again that's a distinction children can usefully learn.

[Mosaic]

Jno, the enquirer would get a long way by using a dictionary - real or online- to define 'Victorian' then 'governess', if these are words s/he doesn't understand.
Getting in the habit of encountering problems, then solving them through a reliable means, is important.
The problem with asking people on t'interweb as a first position, is that it makes you mentally lazy, and a lot of the people out on the web give unreliable information.

[mike11111]

Mums know everything. They go to Iceland.

[redcrx]

Im sure rithak15 will be along with the spam soon, you must be starving if youve been waiting all day

[Bobbisox]

you can come in any chat place and get insulted..LOL
you couldn't do that on the wireless..