For much of the 20th century, educators were adults who had earned an undergraduate degree which typically requires four years of study in higher education. As undergraduate students, these adults had become skilled users of print which was the dominant information technology in both society and school. As a result, educators were the most skilled Read More
Category: Learning
Media and Attention
43: Media and Attention The emerging sophistication of digital media and the accompanying sophistication of media skills are captured in the observation of Seels, Fullerton, Berry, and Horn (2004) that interest in and attention to media is characterized by a bell-shaped curve. Media that are familiar, simple, redundant, and expected are associated with low interest Read More
Humans’ Social Brains
44: The Human Social Brain Beginning in the early 1970’s, cognitive scientists began studying two opposing hypotheses to explain of the anatomical differences between the brains of humans and the brains of other primates: the social brain hypothesis, which posited social factors are the primary force driving the development of the human brain and the Read More
The Lens of Cognitive Load
Appropriate Proper Reasonable This idea is also the subject of the post Cognitive Load Theory Educators avoid theory whenever they can, and that is an unfortunate stance as a good theory is very useful when we want to understand what we do and why we do it. Cognitive load theory is an excellent example of Read More
Educational Adjectives
Perhaps it is the many advertisements that have found there way through my spam filter recently. Perhaps it is that I have been reading (actually browsing) equal amounts of vendor-created content in trade magazines and peer-reviewed book chapters and articles from academic authors. Regardless of the origins, it is coming clear to me that there Read More
Thoughts on Born Digital #borndigital
Born Digital: How Children Grow Up in a Digital Age In 2008, John Palfrey and Urs Gasser wrote the first edition of Born Digital. It was one of several books to appear at the time that focused on the nature of “digital generations.” The timing of those books was reasonable as the generations who had never Read More