EVEN in the digital age there are no short cuts to learning.
Thanks to the power of the internet we may easily be able to lay our hands on facts and figures - and boundless trivia - but that does not equate to the useful acquisition of knowledge.
That applies especially to today's youngsters, often disparagingly referred to as "the Google generation". They may look as if they are know-it-all technological whizzkids - but appearances can be deceptive.
According to senior research scientist Dr Dan Russell, it is a myth that children are necessarily more computer literate than their parents - they can be fluid and fast when playing a game of Minecraft, for example, but that is largely down to practice. Their field of expertise can be extremely narrow.
More importantly, there is the danger that youngsters can easily cut and paste information for a homework assignment, without having used the research skills older generations had to painfully and assiduously acquire.
As with most things in the classroom, the answer is to be found in the skill of the teacher. Even in computer science, the art of the educator is king.
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It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
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