Innovation Profile 145

How you learn; what you learn

If you had never seen an elephant, or a picture of one, it would be very hard to think about things being 'like an elephant'. If gears did not exist, it would be very hard to think about 'gear ratio' without first inventing gears.

The things around us in the world and the words of our language help us to think. This is why Eskimos have twelve words to describe snow. Learning happens through thinking, so an ability to think more diversely must help us learn more diversely.

If you are reading this you are using a device that, very recently, has brought many new 'things' and ideas into our world. It has therefore provided many new ways to think, and to learn.

We must not rely only on learning theories developed before the arrival of computers. We must consider the new ways to learn that are now possible. In the days of the epic poem thinking and learning was done with words. In the days of the craftsman a lot of learning was done by manipulating materials. Now, with computers, we have gained the ability to easily use pictures to think and learn in new ways.

On the Logotron website at http://www.logo.com/cat/browse/thinkingskills.html you will find details of visual thinking software. These packages can help learners to represent what they are thinking more easily than with words and to connect ideas. This external representation of thoughts can support the development of reasoning skills. Students can more effectively give reasons for their opinions, draw inferences and make deductions, and explain what they think.

Much of what is done in education involves getting students to undertake tasks from which, experience tells us, they will learn. The structure of the tasks is often reflected in the ways students construct the knowledge and the understanding they are gaining. Our understanding of how students learn is still relatively poor - but computers are helping us gain insight and providing new knowledge constructions that students can use.

Last week's Innovation Profile suggested that how we can teach should lead to curriculum change. Understanding new ways learners can learn should surely also cause curriculum change, and changes in pedagogy.

The Logotron Profile on our web site will give you an overview of the company and a list of other Innovation Profiles connected with it..

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If you know of examples of innovative use of ICT-for-learning that others would be interested in, please email innovations@eep-edu.org

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