Why memorise the date of the first Moon walk when you can simply search for the information online?

Business strategist and author Don Tapscott thinks the time has come to change teaching methods and focus more on creative thinking, rather than committing facts and figures to memory:

The existence of Google, Wikipedia and online libraries means that there is no useful place in school for old-fashioned rote learning, according to Don Tapscott, author of the bestselling book Wikinomics and a champion of the “net generation”. A far better approach would be to teach children to think creatively so that they could learn to interpret and apply the knowledge available online. “Teachers are no longer the fountain of knowledge; the internet is,” Tapscott said.