When students outsmart the software, they stop learning…and we (as in all of us) are setting them up for it — Research into problems with digital education has found many concerns Executive function & attention issues Distractability & addict-like behaviors Anti-social behavior & cyberbullying Physical health problems Reduced analytical and critical thinking skills And so on… There’s widespread recognition that education technology is causing issues for children and that the “something wrong” being detected is more than just one thing.

Recap So far we have addressed 3 scenarios where the expectations and results of learning a skill are vastly affected both by perspective and (in 2 cases) digital learning. If you need to go over them, here are the links… Short-Circuit Education (1 of 5): Digital Anti-Math Short-Circuit Education (2 of…

The Magic Wand of Art Imagine, if you will, that I have a magic art wand…one that will make you better at drawing instantaneously — assuming that you are not already an accomplished artist. One second, you can’t draw — next moment, you’ve experienced 300% maybe even 1000% improvement! Sounds pretty great, right? What if…

Google’s rise in the early 2000s may have eliminated a critical learned research behavior — So our last conversation (link here, if you need to review), we discussed an example of “Digital Anti-Math” where my own son was being defined in kindergarten as Bad-At-Math when in actuality, he was outwitting the school’s math game and subsequently guessing (and failing) his way through math tests. In…

When students outsmart the software, they stop learning…and we (plural) are setting them up for it — Research into problems with digital education has found many concerns Executive function & attention issues Distractability & addict-like behaviors Anti-social behavior & cyberbullying Physical health problems Reduced analytical and critical thinking skills And so on… Despite the recognition that something is wrong, the pattern appears to be (even if you exclude CoVid-19) actually getting worse.

For those who saw my last post, What Visual Illusions + Contrast can teach us about Reading Disorders, this is a second step into what optical illusions and the visual cortex (the part of our brain that is the true source of most optical illusions) can teach us about reading…

Before we dig in, I do need to address an obvious conflict between reading disorders and the WCAG 2.0 Contrast requirement, which asks for higher contrast to help low-vision and colorblind users. The irony of high contrast is its adverse effects on people with reading disorders like Dyslexia and Irlen…