Bror's Blog

Technology and learning - partway there?

Last week I attended a conference sponsored by the New York Times called Schools for Tomorrow designed to highlight directions forward for the application of technology to education, both in K-12 schools and in higher education.

Some interesting perspectives, but also a snap-shot of an industry still in the middle of deciding how best to think about technology's role in learning – and still (mostly – not completely) missing how to deeply interleave threads of understanding about learning with the potential of technology.

A cognitive scientist walks into a bar. . .

A very funny (to me, at least) cartoon by Bill Amend in the FoxTrot series was pointed out to me by my colleague Eric Ellefsen. Any cartoon that uses the phrase “10,000 hours of practice” more than once gets my attention!

This little piece compresses a huge amount of learning science into just a few panels. I thought it might be fun to deconstruct it a bit. (Yeah, I know, I should get out more. . .)

Technology driving learning, or learning driving technology: Which way 'round?

An article in yesterday’s New York Time captured well the confusion that exists using technology in education today.  “Everyone” thinks there is something great technology should do for learning, since kids love it and so it “ought to work,” driving much spending.  At the same time, there is little concrete evidence at scale about how technology lifts learning. 

What to do?  Decide that technology doesn’t work for learning (again)? Decide that the assessments being used to measure learning are wrong (again)?

The problem with technology and learning is not with technology, nor with the assessments – it’s with the lack of focus on what works for learning.