Knowledge is the key to success, to power, to respect in high societies, moreover, the key to one’s personality. Based on knowledge, one gets a job, earns a living and gains respect among fellow people. Knowledge is that holy thing, with too much of it you can make enemies, with too little of it you will be degraded, but with the correct amount of it, you can do wonders.

Research based learning, is one of those heavenly aspects of knowledge which, with the use of technology, makes life easier and advances our knowledge to a higher level. It can be helpful in aspects such as projects, discoveries or even learning new theories.

Based on research, an average child spends two-thirds of his learning time on the net, of course, trying to know more about the world of knowledge, but little does he or she realise that he or she apends only one-third of his or her learning time trying to go through what had happened at school or maybe even prepare for a test the following day. Between all this he or she misses out on important information that is taught in the classroom. The teacher may relate a theory with day-to-day real life examples, while the child prefers to go home and read about a more advanced version of the theory. However, such methods do prove to backfire during tests, but doesn’t the child learn new things? New concepts? Doesn’t he or she enhance his or her vocabulary and grammar? Or even reading skills?

Such questions arise whenever books are replaced by technology in the form of gadgets. But does that mean that knowledge has been overpowered and dominated by these new tech savvy methods? Well, it certainly has. Teachers prefer projecting notes than writing them down, while children prefer e-notes rather than taking notes and similarly, parents prefer having a printout of the same notes rather than being forced to give their children access to a laptop for hours — the vicious cycle goes on.

But the truth is that no matter how the method is, the actual information has to be registered in our minds one way or another, but the temptation of the availability of endless knowledge on the internet is tough to deny, indeed. As years have passed, we have moved on, our methods have advanced. However, the question of technology thoroughly dominating our ‘old school’ methods is still to be answered. The answer, of course, lies in the years ahead. Let us wait and watch.

— The reader is an Indian student based in Dubai.