Dear Commons Community,
John Medina (University of Washington School of Medicine) kicked-off the Online Consortium’s 20th Annual Conference on Online Learning with a well-received keynote address. The 2,000 plus attendees were riveted to what he had to say on a complex topic, How Brains Learn with Technology. He was knowledgeable, humorous, and able to relate the topic to online learning. Below is an abstract of his talk.
It was a great start for the Conference.
Tony
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How Brains Learn with Technology – John Medina
The formal brain sciences are undergoing a current revolution, with new findings of potential relevance to the education community published almost weekly. This lecture explores some of these findings – focusing on three cognitive neuroscience domains. The first concerns memory formation, the power of repetition and the role so-called interleaved learning models play in creating stable declarative memory traces. The second concerns the importance of visual processing, detailing the idea that you don’t see with your eyes, you see with your mind – and describing a phenomenon known as the Pictorial Superiority Effect. The third discusses the essential role human relationships play in learning, outlining the challenge such findings play for people dedicated to creating meaningful online learning experiences.
