Description: Looking at schools and universities, it is difficult to pinpoint when education, teaching and learning started to haemorrhage purpose, aspiration and function. As the internet offers a glut of information, bored surfers fill their cursors and minds with irrelevancies, losing the capacity to sift, discard and judge. In The University of Google, Tara Brabazon projects a defiant and passionate vision of education as a pathway to renewal, where students are on a journey through knowledge rather than consumers in the shopping centre of cheap ideas. In doing so, she opens a new debate on how to make our educational system both productive and provocative in the (post-) information age.
Review Quotes: 'A passionate, scholarly, deeply considered and, at the same time, practical critique of how universities internationally confuse access to digital information with developing educated and critical citizens. The book will be of value in positively shaping both pedagogic practice and institutional policies.' Alan Jenkins, Oxford Brookes University, UK 'The University of Google is my book of the year for 2007. I have nagged colleagues and friends to read ever since I saw a manuscript copy. It will have a huge impact on everyone in higher education, helping those suspicious of new media to formulate their criticisms and those eager to adopt it better placed to introduce it appropriately.' Frank Webster, City University London, UK 'Angry, experiential and humorous, this book connects with the modern teaching experience in so many ways. Any tutor, teacher or administrator who has ever had to upload a series of lecture notes with the knowledge that many students will merely download the notes and not attend the lecture will engage with this book. The pages offer guidance to bridging the gap between principles and practice. It offers practical steps to blocking students from googling their way through their degrees...This is an engaging book that should grace the shelves of any digitally-aspirant teacher.' M/C Reviews, media-culture.org.au 'It is a thoroughly researched and clearly argued work, written with passion and commitment...As the title suggests, The University of Google tackles the problems and possibilities of the online and digital realm. Brabazon is not a Luddite, and understands that such media and spaces have potential for higher education: the fault is not with the media per se, but how or why it might be used...Perhaps it is for those policy makers further up the academic pecking order that The University of Google would make the most interesting reading, as ultimately it is their decisions that affect those of us at the chalk-face.' Art/Design/Med