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As internet connections improve and costs of classroom hours increase, it’s becoming increasingly important to offer some form of blended or totally online materials to enhance courses. In this posting I’ll introduce some useful free and freemium tools that can enable any teacher to start creating content for online delivery.

We must walk away from this hyper-individualized brand of personalized learning. We must walk away from its reductionism, assuming that education is simply an arrangement of individualized playlist cards or isolated experiences. We must run from the idea that technology is necessary to make the classroom a more personal and humanized place, because what personalizes the classroom is not fancy technology and big data: truly knowing children is what personalizes and humanizes a modern classroom.

Within the last year of my time in Silicon Valley, I spoke with an engineer about an idea he had. He fantasized about the notion that artificial intelligence (AI) technology could, in fact, play a role in personalized learning in the near future. I pushed back immediately, knowing full well the engineer would assure me that AI could very well do some of the jobs that teachers do now. And surely he did. He told me that, some day, the “future Paul France” would look back and see that AI could, in fact, do some of the jobs I do now.

I believe him. I’ve seen what’s possible in Silicon Valley, and I don’t doubt the ventures to which ambitious humans set their minds. That said, I’d never want a computer to do what I do. What I do requires curiosity, compassion, and heart. What I do requires a yearning to contribute to something greater than myself.

I’m sure that an engineer well-versed in AI would tell you that this–curiosity, compassion, heart–that it’s all theoretically possible. And I’m sure it is. But technologists know that good technology is only built to fulfill needs that didn’t previously have solutions. Curiosity, compassion, and a love for learning are needs that are already accounted for.

They are accounted for by teachers–not computers.

A new study reports that certain brain regions interact more closely, while others are less engaged, in people with higher intelligence.

Differences in intelligence have so far mostly been attributed to differences in specific brain regions. However, are smart people’s brains also wired differently to those of less intelligent persons? A new study published by researchers from Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany) supports this assumption. In intelligent persons, certain brain regions are more strongly involved in the flow of information between brain regions, while other brain regions are less engaged.

Earlier this year, the research team reported that in more intelligent persons two brain regions involved in the cognitive processing of task-relevant information (i.e., the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex) are connected more efficiently to the rest of the brain (2017, “Intelligence”). Another brain region, the junction area between temporal and parietal cortex that has been related to the shielding of thoughts against irrelevant information, is less strongly connected to the rest of the brain network. “The different topological embedding of these regions into the brain network could make it easier for smarter persons to differentiate between important and irrelevant information – which would be advantageous for many cognitive challenges,” proposes Ulrike Basten, the study’s principle investigator.

In their current study, the researchers take into account that the brain is functionally organized into modules. “This is similar to a social network which consists of multiple sub-networks (e.g., families or circles of friends). Within these sub-networks or modules, the members of one family are more strongly interconnected than they are with people from other families or circles of friends. Our brain is functionally organized in a very similar way: There are sub-networks of brain regions – modules – that are more strongly interconnected among themselves while they have weaker connections to brain regions from other modules. In our study, we examined whether the role of specific brain regions for communication within and among brain modules varies with individual differences in intelligence, i.e., whether a specific brain region supports the information exchange within their own ‘family’ more than information exchange with other ‘families’, and how this relates to individual differences in intelligence.”

The study shows that in more intelligent persons certain brain regions are clearly more strongly involved in the exchange of information between different sub-networks of the brain in order for important information to be communicated quickly and efficiently. On the other hand, the research team also identified brain regions that are more strongly ‘de-coupled’ from the rest of the network in more intelligent people. This may result in better protection against distracting and irrelevant inputs. “We assume that network properties we have found in more intelligent persons help us to focus mentally and to ignore or suppress irrelevant, potentially distracting inputs,” says Basten. The causes of these associations remain an open question at present. “It is possible that due to their biological predispositions, some individuals develop brain networks that favor intelligent behaviors or more challenging cognitive tasks. However, it is equally as likely that the frequent use of the brain for cognitively challenging tasks may positively influence the development of brain networks. Given what we currently know about intelligence, an interplay of both processes seems most likely.”

"Our understanding of the past has to help us build a better future. That's the purpose of collective memory. Those who control our memory machines wil"

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There are powerful narratives being told about the future, insisting we are at a moment of extraordinary technological change. That change, according to these tales, is happening faster than ever before. It is creating an unprecedented explosion in the production of information. New information technologies — so we're told — must therefore change how we learn: change what we need to know, how we know, how we create knowledge. Because of the pace of change and the scale of change and the locus of change — again, so we're told — our institutions, our public institutions, can no longer keep up. These institutions will soon be outmoded, irrelevant. So we're told.

These are powerful narratives, as I said, but they are not necessarily true. And even if they are partially true, we are not required to respond the way those in power or in the technology industry would like us to.

"Research on effective learning reveals that an awful lot of what goes on in the classroom simply doesn’t matter. There are many pointless activities that take up valuable time in the name of engagement, merely demonstrating progress as opposed to actually making progress. Often, these approaches not only have limited impact on student learning but can have a hugely detrimental impact on teacher workload and wellbeing.

There is significant evidence to suggest that teachers should prune back what they do and focus on a more streamlined approach in the classroom. So it’s less about spending hours cutting things up and putting them in envelopes, and more about creating conditions in which students can gain long-lasting knowledge that can be applied in a range of situations. The following six principles are a distillation of key research on what really matters in the classroom."