Does Google hold all of the answers?

Wow that would be great if I could believe everything I read whether it was out of the newspaper, a book, or off the Internet. BUT in reality I cannot. "Why?" Well for basics not everything that gets published gets fact checked and in all reality the Internet is notorious for that fact that anyone can post anything they want at anytime without checking the facts or providing backup for what they may right. Case and point right here....my blog....granted it is not Wikipedia or Google but I have the freedom to right down my thoughts and opinions and someone may someday come across it and pull what they deem are facts from it whether it is certain or not. And I am aware that there are limits that go along with the "Freedom of Speech" but I have neither the knowledge or experience to discuss them in depth.

Now I realize that my above ranting may seem off topic but in this day and age we are a generation of people that expect instantaneous answers and if I cannot find the answer right away chances are if I call my Mom and she does not know the answer I "google" for the answer. BUT I "google" with caution.

Lets take a basic question for example...."When was Southold (my hometown) founded?" and "google" it. Give me a second...OK I am back...to my surprise the Wikipedia answer is not as bad as I expected but they do state, "Southold was settled in 1640 and in most histories is reported as the first English settlement on Long Island in the future New York State although Lion Gardiner established a manor on Gardiners Island in East Hampton a year earlier in 1639." Well yeah Southold is the first English settlement on Long Island but I have enough background knowledge on the subject to know that the English had actually settled Southold in 1636 when it became the "Southern Hold" of the New Haven colony in Conn. and that is documented in a primary source. Granted the information I was looking for may seem irrelevant to most but what if I was writing a school report and "googled" for the information...the information I found would be wrong.

What I am trying to get at is that yes having "google" to look up information on the fly is great, but I know that the information I find out on the Internet may not always be right and I keep that in mind when I use it. As a teacher I think that it is essential to teach students that caution that goes with looking up the answers and that is why I also think it is important that our students know the basic facts when it comes to history. Do I think it is important that a student know the exact years Lincoln was president? Yes but I do not think that they need to know the years that say Warren G. Harding was president but they need to know what number president he was and have a rough idea of the time period. Let us be honest...history is a complicated subject because what I feel is an important aspect of American History someone else would not but it is a disservice to students to not give them the depth they need when it comes to the subject and by giving the option or the idea that they can just google it is not the message to be sending.

I guess in the end my feeling is that it depends. As I have previously ranted I do think that it is important that students know basic facts and timelines but they do not need to know every single date. Yet again I also think that students should know their times tables by heart and then use a calculator.

Here is my citation because I have know clue as to how else insert it: Southold, New York. (2009, July 2). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13:57, July 2, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.phptitle=Southold,_New_York&oldid=299887813 .