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Silicon Valley Parents Question Value of Technology in Learning. Should We?

Silicon Valley Parents Question Value of Technology in Learning. Should We?

by on October 27, 2011 in Classroom Learning, Evaluation, Informal Learning, Innovation, Learning Style Theory, Social Media, technology, Training Development

According to the recent New York Times series Grading the Digital School, parents in some of the most tech savvy places in America are questioning whether the investment in classroom technology is paying off. Many are sending their children to “low-tech” schools.

In Silicon Valley, the chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, a nine-classroom school, and so do employees of Google, Apple, Yahoo, and Hewlett-Packard.

… the school’s chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. They are not allowed in the classroom …

What does evidence show?

Some experts interviewed for the first article in the series, In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores,  point out that there is little or no clear evidence that technology is paying off.

In a nutshell: schools are spending billions

…

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We’re the Same, But We Like Different

We’re the Same, But We Like Different

by on October 17, 2011 in Learning Retention, Learning Style Theory

So…do you remember the last time you heard someone make an excuse for forgetting a vital piece of information, claiming it’s clearly not their fault because they are a visual learner?  Well, turns out they were full of it.

Doug Rohrer, a psychologist at the University of South Florida, has looked very closely at the learning style theory over the last several years and has found no evidence to suggest that multiple learning styles exist among different people.

Similarly, psychologist Dan Willingham at the University of Virginia says teachers should not tailor instruction to different kinds of learners.  He claims we’re on a more equal footing than we may think when it comes to how our brains learn.

Both psychologists recommend scrapping the learning style theory altogether, and instead, believe we should figure out similarities in how our brains learn, rather than differences.

So what does this mean for training …

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