Somewhat ironically, the internet is awash with articles from various experts bemoaning the effect that technology has had on young people. Many focus on the negative effects the digital world is having on our brains – our general knowledge is lacking, we don’t read like we used to, our research skills and critical thinking are devolving. Or are they?
Plenty of evidence also indicates cognitive gains from exposure to new technologies. The issue boils down to: are our minds better or worse off since the digital boom? How has it affected the way we learn? While technological innovations are being recognised and lauded for their power and convenience, it seems a disproportionate amount of attention is paid to the negative aspects, rather than emphasising the positives.
New Zealand has been relatively quick off the mark with adapting our education system to new technologies. High-speed broadband has been rolled out, funding for computers is flowing to low-decile schools, and many government-funded courses are shifting online. These are moves that Craig Smith, the 24-year-old founder and CEO of NZ-based initiative Language Perfect, says are fundamental to the growth of digital learning.
Craig Smith, the founder of Language Perfect Photo: Unknown
For him, Language Perfect was a programme born of necessity. Ten years ago he was struggling to learn Year 11 Japanese and French vocabulary at school. Not wanting to get embarrassed by volunteering the wrong response in class, Craig developed a shortcut. “I didn’t have time to learn 1,500 words so I built a programme over a couple of weekends, and my friends and I did really well in our exams.”
Since then, Craig has developed his product, and launched it at a time when a new eagerness had taken over the education industry. Currently, Language Perfect has over 300,000 paying customers, and has been tailored to curricula in NZ and across Australia. He has also expanded business to a suite called Education Perfect.
Craig agrees the way we learn has changed, and believes that technology has created a more inclusive learning style, especially for those who haven’t excelled in school. “The students that really got into the programme and did really well weren’t necessarily the top students beforehand, it was like they had been left behind in class and were finally able to catch up. Online you can make mistakes without fear and any penalty, the computer isn’t going to judge you.”
So, the oft-criticised anonymity of the internet can also have a positive side for insecure learners. I experienced this first-hand while learning basic computing code last year. Using a website like codeacademy.org was less daunting, and more effective, than attending night classes at the local library, or the programming book I wasted $30 on.
If anonymity is not your bag, technology also provides the flipside with endless opportunities for collaborative culture and support groups. In the same way writers of Harry Potter slash fiction have found a community on the underground annals of the internet, other specialised communities have popped up, many with educational benefits. Having more forums with specified learning environments, combined with technology’s endless capacity to be customized, offers a host of educational gains. Creating socially inclusive or anonymised learning environments has proven to be beneficial for those who don’t respond as well to conventional practices.
I have a competing interest in this field, having a brother with developmental and learning difficulties. Through my brother’s support network, I was able to contact another teenager who was able to shed light on how technology had helped him out. Many secondary schools around NZ offer additional learning programmes such as Mathletics, which can be tailored to individuals across a wide range of mathematical ability.
Wade* said that such flexible programmes have been the most helpful for him. For some, the repetition would be boring, but it definitely helps those who may not grasp concepts at the same speed. “Being able to work at my own pace is really important. If I get more questions right, I can stay interested for longer. I wish [these programmes] were available for more subjects. I don't have to raise my hand every five seconds if I don't understand something… my teacher gets less grumpy.”
Despite teachers’ irritability, Wade says he recognises they play an important role even in this digital age. “I don’t want to be on a computer all day… social interaction is important for me too, so it's good to have both.”
Having a like-minded community is important for those who may feel like they have a limited peer support network. It’s also having positive effects for those in teaching positions. Mark Tweedale, who has worked as a Resource Teacher of Vision in the UK and across NZ, says teachers are not as restricted in what they want to do. Less time is spent gathering vision-aided resources, and more time allowing the students to reach their full ability. Accessibility software has been developed further and “we now have mainstream technology that has built in accessibility options that allow blind [and vision impaired] students to use them independently”. With our world becoming increasingly accepting of diversity, having these areas of inclusive education is serving a public good and delivering benefits that are evolving so fast they can’t really be measured yet.
As soon as I started exploring this issue, it became clear how far education initiatives were going in New Zealand. Were we an exception? Everyone that I interviewed said computer-assisted learning has taken off in NZ, and we are punching above our weight on an international scale. Craig said he has witnessed a fairly massive change in the few years he has been involved with this industry. “In the first 18 months, the programme received flat-out rejection. Not a single teacher even agreed to try it.” Gradually, people became more comfortable around computer-based learning. Modern-day university students provide endless examples of this, with the transition to open education growing at 14 times the rate of traditional learning worldwide. During my time at the University of Otago, being able to tap in to more resources than I could ever hope to read, and being able to instantly check their validity, meant my searches for information could be accelerated and refined. But even a classroom of millennials need instructions. In my second-year history papers, we had librarians give us detailed lessons into how to correctly behold and manage so much knowledge. It’s easy to get distracted by torrents of information and fall down an electronic rabbit-hole and be left with nothing substantive.
Advances in technology have also had a major influence in developing countries. Education specialist Sugata Mitra, who was behind the Hole in the Wall venture based in Kolkata, has developed a new education approach called ‘minimally invasive education (MIE). MIE appears aligned with our generation’s approach to things. Instead of reading a manual, we always go for trial-and-error. The brains of young people can work things out for themselves and end up writing a new set of rules after brief exposure anyway. Craig said this was a pivotal point is his development of Language Perfect. “When I was at uni, I spent months getting people in my hall sitting in the evenings after dinner just watching them use [my programme]. I never gave them any direction when they were stuck but responded by changing my product. It had to be as intuitive as possible, needed to be made so a person had to get all the way through without needing help.”
Most of the criticisms levelled at digitised youth can be turned into compliments if they are phrased differently. A key example relates to the issue of our shortened attention spans. Professor Jim Flynn of Otago University, an international expert on IQ, believes this effect is real, and is directly linked to young people reading less serious literature.
Craig agrees with the common adage that we do get bored more easily, but says there are different ways of looking at the issue. “Language Perfect hosts world champs for high schools everywhere and we’ve had students competing for 16 hours per day. It’s not healthy and we don’t encourage it, but I do find it interesting that the same kids would be bored if this exercise was on a piece of paper instead of a computer.”
Human knowledge in its entirety is online, but we don’t really act like it is.
By tapping into this gamer mentality that many young people have a tolerance for, it is a ‘play while you learn’ function that allows for such success. Because we are more familiar with games, and we know the features of games, we can more easily ‘gameify’ a learning tool. This seems to be why young people have taken to these endeavours more naturally, having exposure to technology over a more formative part of their lives, they are more primed to cater to the needs they see exposed.
When I asked Craig about the link between technology and entrepreneurship, he said, “by encouraging the use of computers in the first place, the government has created a platform which incentivises business to create products on top of it.” This is reflected anywhere you care to look, billionaires are younger than ever, apps are created by highschoolers, my IFLS feed is filled with the latest stories of 14-year-olds developing a new type data transfer technology.
In light of new developments, has our opinion of what education is or the function that it serves changed through all this? Flynn says he has observed new attributes in student learning as both technology and what is expected of students has changed. He stresses the importance of combining the new with the old, and warns that, without knowledge from books, what is gained from technology won’t be as useful. “We’ve made cognitive progress and are better at technology, but not better [in reaching] its goals.”
While it is still important to possess a canon of knowledge, it is becoming more important how that knowledge is applied, and how problems that arise are dealt with. That’s what Craig found most useful about the programme he created for himself at 15. “It meant instead of memorising verbs in French class, because I learned better on a screen, that my actual class time could be spent having a conversation.”
As information technology is evolving quickly, it challenges us to both adapt to these new tools and to prepare ourselves for when they become obsolete and are replaced. We are still developing adaptive responses to such a vast wealth of information and ever-more rapid and sophisticated means to search, extract, compile, and analyse. Human knowledge in its entirety is online, and we don’t really act like it is. I could do anything on the internet but spend the majority of my time online watching Vice documentaries, trying to get 15/15 on the Stuff.co.nz trivia quiz and stalking my current crush on Twitter and Instagram.
Aaron Swartz, the late co-founder of Reddit, viewed web as a new type of semantic, which is continually refined in accordance with the preferences of the user. Rather than lamenting our digitization and seeing it as compromising our ‘humanity’, why aren’t we using the opportunities it gives us to be more humane than ever?
Despite the new opportunities that technology is providing, we’re still beholden to many pre-digital expectations. Nonetheless, it seems we are moving in the right direction; the outlook of those learning is changing, as the system in which we are learning is adapting. If we learn to use technology correctly, exploiting the cross-pollination between our brains and the machines we use, the impact for education can be very positive indeed.
* Declined to use his real name in case his comments jeopardised his relationship with his teachers.
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