That's a nice ending, but ...
If there are any long-term readers of the Boidem out there reading
that last paragraph, they probably would have found themselves scratching
their heads and remarking that my conclusion seems a bit out of character.
It's certainly not the emphasis on what we do with the information once
it's found. That's consistent with what's been written in the past. But
do I really want to relegate the searching to online robots and let them
have all the fun? Numerous times I've written that one of the most enjoyable
internet based activities I can think of is getting lost while searching
for something, discovering at some point along the line that I've found
something much more interesting that wasn't at all what I was originally
looking for. If we let our bots do our searching for us we won't be in
a position to appreciate and enjoy this serendipity.
But that's not really the point. I certainly hope that humans will continue
to choose to search for information by themselves, if for no other reason than
to not find it. Schools, however, may discover that they won't have any reason
to teach searching skills. After all, getting lost isn't ordinarily a priority
in the school system, and if these skills ultimately become as simple, as no
sweat as I suggest, schools probably won't bother with them. They'll find better
ways for their pupils to exert an effort in order to justify the learning process.