Sunday Posts

                                                                 Photo by Lachlan Donald   The idea underlying all my work is this: At the time of great technological and social change, learning by practice gets better results than academic study. Having invested myself in finding better ways to organise learning by practice and in designing better measurements to assess its impact, I am aware of the objections this position might give rise to. At a time of great change - and the resulting uncertainty - it is better to focus on what does not change, human universals, as practice focus may lead to superficiality. The real change, it is true, happens at the fringes. If one really wants to get a sense of what's happening in AI, they are better off at a Research University today than interning ...

  Let’s start with a broad definition of education technology: When Jan Comenius was using vernacular medium and illustrations to teach a foreign language in the Seventeenth century (his Gate of the Tongue unlocked came out in 1631) , he was using the new technology of print and an educational idea (learning through illustrated textbooks) to create a new form of education.   However, such a definition of technology would also narrow down what we could call Education Technology (Edtech, as it is fashionably called). C ontemporary Edtech is a catch-all phrase for any technology used within the educational context. Duolingo, which employs an app to offer a new, gamified, approach to language learning , will be clubbed together with some boring classroom management software in the same   category. Instead, it makes more sense to define education technology to include such applications of scientific knowledge to further educational goals, rather than any piece of machinery or...

  Popular belief may hold that there is nothing better than getting out of the building and learn from doing things . Still, the cha otic, costly and unique nature of experience means that these may not translate into meaningful learning. The data bears it out: Though the employers give weight to relevant work experience, the correlation between work experience and work performance is at best tenuous. This is a serious limitation for all work-based learning models, including apprenticeships and co-operative education .   The key to learning from experience is a prepared mind. It is not enough to have the experience , but the person having the experience must be able to engage consciously in the activity . Always be learning should be the motto, and each action should be understood in its context. To construct a learning system that enables our learners to do this, we educate our learners through a learn-connect-lead cycle.   Learn-Connect-Lead   Learning is ...