The observation that students who have access to the internet use it primarily to surf, copy, cut, and paste, results from the type of questions students are asked to answer using this resource. If students are asked to find and report information, then I consider the above mentioned response a reasonable one. Again, this is an issue of teacher thinking and construction of a question, not from an inherently inferior tool. Cindy - I agree with you totally.
Internet is a spectacular took.
But teachers and administrators must be scrupulously careful about how it is employed, and the type of student product expected.