IAE Blog

I created the non-profit company Information Age Education (IAE) in 2007. During the same year I wrote the IAE-pedia article, What the Future Is Bringing Us (2007). I am now making good progress in writing the eleventh yearly article (year 2017) of this series. You can access all of these “futures” articles in the IAE-pedia (Moursund, 2017). You may enjoy looking at “old” forecasts and comparing what actually happened with what was forecast.

My intent in this multi-year series is to focus on changes in technology, especially Information and Communication Technology (ICT), and how these changes could or perhaps should be affecting our educational systems.

College students in a teacher education program of study typically take one or more courses in psychology. An important reason for this is that an understanding of psychology helps one to understand people—in particular, one’s students, their parents, and fellow educators.

One of my favorite forms of self-education and entertainment is to view Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Talks (TED, 2017). These videos are typically under 18 minutes in length and the speakers are well-qualified in their presentation areas.

Keith Devlin has long been a world class math educator. This IAE Blog entry discusses his recent article, All the Mathematical Methods I Learned in My University Math Degree Became Obsolete in My Lifetime (Devlin, 01/01/2017). Quoting Devlin:

When I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from one of the most prestigious university mathematics programs in the world (Kings College London) in 1968, I had acquired a set of skills that guaranteed full employment, wherever I chose to go, for the then-foreseeable future—a state of affairs that had been in existence ever since modern mathematics began some three thousand years earlier. By the turn of the new Millennium, however, just over thirty years later, those skills were essentially worthless, having been very effectively outsourced to machines that did it faster and more reliably, and were made widely available with the onset of first desktop- and then cloud-computing. In a single lifetime, I experienced first-hand a dramatic change in the nature of mathematics and how it played a role in society. [Bold added for emphasis.]

"Education must be increasingly concerned about the fullest development of all children and youth, and it will be the responsibility of the school to seek learning conditions that enable each individual to reach the highest level of learning possible for her or him." (Benjamin S. Bloom; American educational psychologist; 1913–1999.)  The very ...

IAE Guest BlogLiza LoopFirst published 12/13/2016 In LinkedIn.Reprinted with the permission of the author.Well, not none. I've been looking for the Museums of Learning, Teaching and Education in the world for several years. I've only found one, MOTAL (Museum of Teaching and Learning in Fullerton California), that seems to target the field as a whol...

Dedicated to Robert Sylwester  The Joy of Learning is a new, free IAE book based on a series of recently published IAE Newsletters (IAE, 2016). Robert Sylwester served as co-editor of the IAE Newsletter for many years and was co-editor of six previous IAE Newsletter books. This new book is dedicated to Bob, who died August 5, 2016, which was s...

I’ll bet you think that the R in the title of this IAE Blog entry stands for Resolution. Wrong! It is the 4^th R in the list Reading, ‘Riting, ‘Rithmetic, and Reasoning (computational thinking).

The Fourth R is the title of my newest free (short) book. I strongly believe that the 4^th R is now fully as important as each of the first three Rs. My book presents arguments for and “how to” suggestions for fully integrating the 4^th R into the PreK-12 curriculum. Like the first three Rs, the study and use of the 4^th R should be occurring throughout the school day, as well as outside of school.

When reading, writing, and arithmetic were invented more than 5,000 years ago, the available technology was modest. However, chiseling on stone and writing on clay tablets that then were dried in the sun or baked in an oven worked, and some of these writings have survived for many thousands of years.

Ink, lead (graphite) pencils, and then typewriters were all great improvements in usability. Computers have brought us video screen displays, graphics, video, touch screens, voice I/O, and routine access to the Web, now the world’s largest library. Thus, one would certainly expect that students would benefit from these vastly improved aids to written communication.

“There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.” (Henry Louis “H.L.” Mencken; American journalist, essayist, editor; 1880-1956.)

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” (Albert Einstein; German-born theoretical physicist and 1921 Nobel Prize winner; 1879-1955.)

I have been reading about Finland’s public school system for a number of years. Year after year, it is ranked near the top of school systems throughout the world (Schwab, 2016). Many people have asked, “Why?” and what can we (educational leaders in my country) do in order to emulate or exceed this success. See the video, Finland’s Formula for School Success (Edutopia, 1/25/2012).

If it were easy to emulate Finland’s successful approach, I believe it would have been done in many different school districts and school systems. My conclusion is that we can learn from Finland’s school system, but that its core reasons for success are not easily replicated.