knowledge and Learning In The News - 7/27/2006

July 27, 2006

Multi-tasking Adversely Affects Brain's Learning - Science Daily
Even if you learn while multi-tasking, that learning is less flexible and more specialized, so you cannot retrieve the information as easily.

Teacher development key to tech success: Polling, scientific research, and sources of error - Christopher D. Sessums
The poll (read: not a formal scientific investigation) attempts to shed light on educators' opinions regarding the use of computers in their classrooms and "attempts to gauge the effectiveness of computers in preparing students for the 21st-century workplace."

The emerging 1% rule - Anecdote
In Yahoo Groups, the discussion lists, 1% of the user population might start a group; 10% of the user population might participate actively, and actually author content, whether starting a thread or responding to a thread-in-progress; 100% of the user population benefits from the activities of the above groups.

Building Better Virtual Teams - eLearn Magazine
PowerPoint is not an effective teaching tool for an online class. Good PowerPoint presentations need a real-time presenter. Yes, I could record an audio track along with PowerPoint. I know professors who report great success doing just that. I have even heard students praise such lectures. But, prerecorded lectures are not interactive.

The Flynn effect is reversing - Mind Hacks
American Scientist discusses the trend for changes in how well people score on intelligence tests and notes that the Flynn effect, whereby the population has been scoring increasingly well on intelligence tests over time, seems to be slowing down or reversing in some places.