The importance to stimulate children/student/youngsters #brain #medialearning2011

Peter Adriaenssens (expert in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at KULeuven) speaks at the conference of Media and Learning in the Flemish Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. Some notes from his speech.

Brain and educational practice
All starts at the neuron level. These neurons and their branches will form a neural network. From birth to 2 years, this neural network is growing at a quick speed.

this process is genetically determined, but not all will be needed, this is were the genetic will meet nurture. Parts of these will be pruned as theings are 'not needed'. So it is imperative to take this neural plasticity into account when stimulating children from early on.

These synapsis will keep growing all the way to half of the twenties. This is the work that needs to be done for the biggest part in the first 18 years. Exposing the young brain to a wide variety of stimulus will decide the quality of emotion and behaviour. It is a continuous process of adaptation of the brain. this brain needs meaningful interactions to grow, so exposure to media, creativity, ... will actively stimulate growth (language, concentration, ...). This will result eventually in adolescent behaviour.

Children that are not exposed to stimulae, will result in a very poor set of neural networks.

As such society and all of us in it, are responsible for brain stimulus.

Exposure to stimulae are at the center of the discussion about violent exposure by media etc. But why do not we set up research centers about 'good media' instead of looking at the negative impact (personal note: good point!).

The Brain
cosists of many different parts that work together to make meaning of the world
nees appropriate nutrituion to reach it maximal potential
needs appropriate sleep in order to work effectively
needs ongoing developmentally appropiate stimulation
learns most effectively when information is provided in the child's prefrered larning or thinking style

Important to explore the language at which children feel at their best, might be dance, physical, creativity.... this push for positive stimulae is important for their brain as children have different preferences (or their brains have).
Provide children with camera's, internet, media tools...

Critical though of myself: lack of infrastructure will result in a sustained digital divide with low resource areas and/or groups.

Are we able to prove that media stimulus will result in an improved child development?
We do not have the data to found this, but we can set out some guidelines.
Growing importance of social skills. And making them open to democratical, critical analysis to be ready for this world. Lifelong learning is a need, but does education taking care of this need? Are schools redesigned to allow them to provide lifelong learning?

Adults should think more like babies, as a babies brain is the most powerful #learning computer with amazing #cognitive skills

Informal learning is one of the key topics in this knowledge era. We all use it, and informal learning comes as natural to us human beings as eating. If this quest for knowledge is rooted in each one of us, it starts from the moment we are babies.

Ever since I became a parent (four months and a half now) I have been wondering at times why I put in that much effort into this small baby that barely gave me any signal of recognition in the beginning. But although I did wonder about that from time to time, I kept/keep giving; telling myself that it will pay in the long run. But at times – especially when he has one of his more difficult days – I just think, babies grow up no matter what I do, so why should I invest my precious time anyway!!! *angry, unreasonable fit*. It is on those moments that my learning network can come up with answers that south my soul, telling me it does make a difference and that no matter how intense raising a baby can be at times, investing and nurturing life is the best option no matter what.

Luckily for my son, my partner is the one really giving at this moment – at home 24/7. Always there, almost always patient and with a remarkable – truly remarkable – sense for stimulating the cognitive brain of our preciously young baby (she’s a teacher at heart). Learning him to grab, crawl, speak on the basis of a never relentless stream of examples and motivational acknowledgment when our son takes action.

Alison Gopnik was the one enlightening me this October morning. She works on the subject of cognitive development and draws on psychological, neuroscientific and philosophical works to create and prove her own research findings. She is a professor at Berkeley.

In this 18 minute session on the cognitive characteristics of babies and preschool children Alison says:

How is it possible that babies know so much more then we think they do?

The answer lies in evolution. There is a relationship between the duration of the childhood of a species and how big the brain is of that species. Crows, rooks… are very smart birds (like chimps), they have a longer lasting childhood than for example chickens. And when looking at these two species the crows are much capable of solving complex dilemma’s then chickens.

So the duration of childhood is the connection to knowledge and learning. This also means that evolution had to come up with a solution to allow learning to happen along many years before autonomy steps in. This might be why children are so dependent for such a long time (in general and looking at western society).

A revolution has been taken place in the understanding of our brains and how it evolves. This is based on findings of reverent Bayes on machine learning (based on probability theory) and started from why scientists come to results, and he put it in a mathematical model.Babies use the same mathematical model: babies make complicated mathematical equations that allow them to distill how the world works. To proof this hypothesis, Alison did some simple preschool statistic tests (with four year old's). In a short time, the 4 year old's found the correct probability measure, and they use these results to shape their world. The interesting thing here is that 4 year old's actually are better at finding improbable theories than adults do (GREAT stuff!).

Children actually do experimental research, but it is called ‘playing’.

Adult cognition is different from child’s cognition, as the adults are much less open, very focused, purposed driven span of attention. Children are less focused, but more open, holistic information intake. So they are flooded by synapse dynamics.

Until you have done all that learning, you are vulnerable. Evolution enables us to learn.

At times adults consciousness can expand and meeting the children’s consciousness: this happens when we are in a completely new situation (in love in Paris after 3 double espresso’s).

So if we – as humans want to achieve the openness of mind that will enable us to come up with new hypothesis in a matter of instants, we – as adults need to think more like children again.  

My teacher is two weeks old and I starved him (almost) ...

On the 4th of June 2011 I became a mother of Isaak. Ever since he is born he has been teaching me and I noticed that I have been a poor learner at times but willingly picking up what I can.

All of a sudden all the books on cognitive learning, child evolution and so on fall into pieces. As always learning can only really happen when doing and ... from this time onward (if all the gods and sciences are willing) I will do it for the rest of this life thanks to this new life.

I had never imagined that all of a sudden my ways of handling and taking care of the baby connects me not only to my deeper self, but also to my forefathers and -mothers, my peers and friends. In my actions I see and feel all of them, as if time is willing to lift up its veil for a moment and show me timelessness in Isaak's eyes.

In his short life, I have been overheating him, under-cooling him, giving him not enough food, changing his diapers in ways he clearly stated was not the right way (apparently not to be used as a turban, nor low hanging skirt). On many occasions I simply looked at him with a startled face not knowing what to do. Time and time again he showed me what to do with basic feedback of cries and gestures, oh yes immediate feedback is important.
This learning cannot be done on my own and there is no formal training. Parenthood is clearly learned informally and luckily it happens in collaboration with other, more experienced people who are willing to share what they know.

It is startling to see how all learning follows the same paths. We probably could make a unified learning theory?

So within two weeks Isaak taught me that in life we will always stay learners, and that a network of friends, family, connections will help each and everyone of us to find solutions enabling us to live a better life. I am humbled by his simplicity and the universal aspect of life and learning at every stage in our lives. And although people say babies learn the most, I feel they teach us even more.

For those who wonder, Isaak is doing well despite my rather poor parenting skills, and he laughs at my feeble baby wisdom that I got out of books. His name actually means 'he laughs', and ... it fits him.

Mimi Ito: what the user wants in mLearning at mLearnCon

A dressed in black woman with Japanese features who talks amazingly quick and eloquent.

Device proliferation is one of the specific features of the new mobile user. It is personal, ambient contact enabling, sharing media. People will go to a great length to have personal, customized media based on - sometimes - a conglomerate of devices.
Japanese youth are into mobile media longer than any other user group around the world. Very few learners and educators take advantage of the new mobile possibilites. We should overcome the boundaries of schools, companies... and really get into mobile sharing and learning across boundaries.
Kids always reiterified boundaries, but in todays society the boundaries are more than ever challenged. The media use of youth has had an innovative influence on society.
Technology becomes a proxi for social context. So both social and context are important. The relationship to mobile devices is a proxi for the social relationships the users have.

We have moved to an era that we can be part of the media flux 24/7. An era of multitasking, where the constant stream of social media is constantly there. Downside of connectivity => constant attention cuts => need new mechanisms to filtering focus.

fluid flows of knowledge is the model we should follow, dixit Ito, refering to Hagel, Brown and Davidson. Using connectivity as resources for lifelong Learning.
social media = social communication + personal media.
Peer sharing, social viewing, locative media, transmedia. The nice thing about mLearning is that it makes it ubiqiutous.

Peer sharing
shift from traditional top-down formal formats to connected, informal formats.
In a lot of ways the mobile phone is the first personal computer (emerging regions, youngsters) = personal connectivity to the mobile world. It is an individual device = powerful adoption pusher.
looks into the effect of mobile phone communication on language, e.g. 'U rawk', 'drinkin til 2'
The important thing about sms is sharing presents, it is about sharing presents, it is about sense of social connection, a social wrapper. Fulltime intimate community. Text messaging drove mobile internet in Japan, because it was not possible to text message across different providers. With this push into mobile internet, other sharing medias followed.
Connecting all this mobile connectivity into learning.
Participatory learning emerged, and the pc was not the best option for this mobile exchange. Ambient access became possible, and this ambient access was linked to the specialist community, or the trusted community. So this enabled building on each others experience. Peer learning gave much better results than the hierarchal learning that was happening before.

Linking social media to location: locative media
inward photography, putting themselves in the picture. Outward with pictures. Community pictures: mobile social network that captures where youth was when and which can be shared afterwards as well, so they are always carrying mini sticker albums around (Inge: this is reallllly great!).
Ambient storytelling: university of social California. application that launches once you enter a building, and it provides a set of tools that can be used in the building, creating a knowledge database of what people do and emerse in when moving through the building (qrcodes, ...). Effort to build a history, linked to a location. Visitors and residents of the building can also participate in these activities.

Social viewing
connecting through their mobiles to connect to similar experiences. Japanese example: Nico video: annotations can be made on the videos, so if you are watching a video with many, you can add your remarks at any part of the video and you can put it on any scene of the video. Access to video is increasingly via mobile, but there is a lack of social connectivity in videa and it is precisely the communication layer that drives the learning and attention. One exaple Project k-nect: students could connect to their mentors, peers, content => learning outcomes: Bjerede, Atkins and Dede, it is connectivity to learning AND mentoring (Inge check this).

Transmedia
Social glue happens. Linking up the specific features of mobile devices, and linking them to other media. Example: pokemon, media sensation that crosses cultures and regions. Infiltrating social meanings, it is a huge knowledge economy behind it. content is about gaming and social interaction. Media mobilezes kids to act: viral contageous media. Media is the social glue, one pokemon is taking out, and other people flock together. Opportunistic learning moments, because they have these portable devices. Context of learning and social learning. Gaming is based on sharing more and more, social learning wrapper is getting more important by game designers. Social experience is part of gaming for nintendo, and since pokemon they really got the idea and importance of social gaming. Social connection with other platforms is also gaining importance with Nintendo DS. Now they start with Nintendo DS classrooms.

Manhatta project: collaborative project in New York city, drawing on the work of eric anderson, who looked at the ecosystem of New York. These databases and learning resources is put online. Now a game is made, to get youngsters out in the streets of New York and share eco locations with the database. So knowledge base knowledge media.

Inge question: there have been some projects in trying to get kids of around 12 years old a different learning experience, different in it not being traditional school curriculum, but do you know of any early smaller children initiatives? Ito answer: most of the initiatives are for the middleschool kids, quest for learning school, manhatta project... but it is covering these kids, because they are at an age where they move from being inquisitive to being blocked by peer pressure.

Question to you all: do any of you know of any initiatives directed at really young kids (even beginning with kids only a couple of months old up to 6 year olds) that embeds the new media results that come out of these researches into new forms of education?

Seth Godin on why you should take your life into your own hands: be an artist/genius

Yesterday I want to the Elizabethzaal in Antwerp, Belgium to hear Seth Godin talk. At first I was not sure this would benefit me, as he focuses on marketing rather a lot and ... I am into learning and not all that keen on the consumption industry. But I did learn that opening up to people, will give you more understanding. Well, I must admit, I liked his speech. I liked it for many reasons, but most of all because he plees to leave the traditional classroom, ex-cathedra, data memorisation school and ... be creative and shape your own life.
This idea of course is not that new: Napoleon Hill wrote about that in his book Think and grow rich , Steve Chandler did in his 100 ways to motivate yourself , Jay Cross has put some questionmarks on education as well. So, Seth Godin is not alone with promoting this idea. But what is nice, is that he links your own development to daring to leave your comfort zone, daring to go ahead and act despite your natural fears that keep you from being the leader of your own life and potentially (but not necessary) the leader of others.
What was actually surprised that Seth Godin, who people told me was a marketing guru, also emphasized the importance of making a difference and being human.

Basically he said that We all look up to our heroes, but only a few of us strive to be one ourselves. Yet, in this era we can all become our own hero/genius as we have the power and the production possibilities (= internet and a connected laptop).

I tweeted during the session:

• you r never gonna be the only one. We branded ourselves to death. What worked in the past, no longer applies: if it already exists, you can't win the race. Be a creator, an artist.
• trust, belief, one person at the time, take the people where they want to go, be exiting.
• connect to the people directly, choose to make a difference, what you want to do is important enough so do it.
• do not be interchangeable, be creative, (e.g. Japanese bar sells to you what the previous person ordered, so as you go up to the bar, you are pressed to think: will you order a wonderful dish for the next person (you will probably not know) or do you order something horrible? Which side of humanity do you serve?)
• choose to do The Other Thing, creating smth human, do not do what can have a best possible score but never be unique (e.g. bowling).
• own the system and own it... Thx the internet, lulu... You no longer need to be obediant, you can act and deliver/ship what you want.
• competence is no longer scarce, many people become competent in what already exists.
• if you can automate your job description, you loose. Build your own thing, do not follow.
• solve interesting problems.
• Realise what the instructions are you follow, what is the worst thing that can happen if you stop following? think branson, when he has a thought, he does it and of all the ideas he has some really work (even the ones that others perceived as impossible: space tourism).
• do art that matters and is human.
• Kulak (name is wrong... ) general us army: found that the least paid, lowest echelon soldiers now makes the difference in the wars (remark from myself: is grassroots moving up?).
• do not make boring stuf for average people.
• give gifts to come together and connect.
• make the world better, go against the lizard brain, do emotional labour = work by thinking.
• make an experience, your job is your platform to art, you know how to be a genius, belief it.
• Your idea would be just a drop? The ocean is made out of drops.
• be autonomous, no chief above you.
• take small and immediate steps.
• the act of writing is an act, discipline is important.
• make your luck, by doing it again and again and again, figure out what you wanna do and do it, do not sleep until you know.
• socks story (a company that makes socks that never match, so kids talk about it in schools).
• home school your kids to solve interesting problems, teach them to lead.

He did not just preach, he also opened the floor to Q/A. concluding that most politicians are no artists, but in fact governed by the industry (most politicians are interchangeable puppets).

On that note... I am off. Happy Easter to those that celebrate it, in Belgium we eat huge amounts of chocolate. We tell our children that 'the easter bells will come and drop chocolate for all'.

Blogger goal in 2010: more narrative coherence in between the topic strands

Wondering about the tulip image and how it links to this post? Look below.

As Christian Creutz put it so clearly: contemporary information is faster, more intense and direct. It is impossible to follow all that is created, even when limiting myself to a topic of any kind, there is so much knowledge out there in so many people. So, it looked to me that focusing will help my personal learning, as long as I link it to others who dive into similar topics. So for this year I will weave connections and topics together.

In the past year I also realized more then ever, that the narrative was missing and that I was missing this oldest human educational form in my blog. Narrations however might add to a deeper understanding, clarifying why I am learning, where my learning is going and it can also clarify it for possible followers. So for 2010 I have one stylistic ambition, to focus on just a couple of main topics that will be covered as I learn and act throughout 2010. And if possible to get some sort of narrative strand linking them all (or parts of them) together.

Future of education: institutions, interdisciplinary examples: art, activism, underground movement learning.
Pedagogies in contemporary learning: getting creative with existing and new stuff, trying to link it to a learning and theoretical framework with simple language and terms.
Ubiquitous learning: informal learning, formal learning, just-in-time learning, all the while keeping self-regulated learning in mind, or just immersing in learning no matter what context or location anyone is in.
Learning gadgets, tips and tricks: should pick this up.
mLearning: yes, it is still high on my list of fun topics.
Learning starts in the womb: getting my teeth into (very) early learning and possibly enhance chances of getting a good start for very, very young children. The informal learning, getting to grips with the world, stuff of with under two year old children.
And liven everything up a bit: humor (absolutely not sure if this will work).

These topics are linked to the eLearning predictions I have for 2010 and which might be added to the eLearn magazine's post on eLearning predictions (still on the editors table), so in that sense moving from predictions to goals. On the other hand, I wonder if I will be able to get some sort of narrative through all the posts?

Tulips? Typing in your major topics might reveal a new connection for networking
If you wonder what the image has to do with the blog post, I just put in all my main topics and googled for the first image. This gave me the tulips, which were linked to the blog of Jess Laccetti, who teaches in Edmonton, Canada on a couple of topics mentioned above. A good connection to add, me thinkest while adding Jess (hi) to my twitter connections.