Reading to your children makes no difference

Less than 1 in 2 parents read to their children says the team behind the ‘National Year of Reading’. Does this ‘Year of…’ or ‘Week for..’ or ‘Day of…’ actually work, or is it just a scam for some well paid campaigners and ad agencies to make some money? I only ever seem to be aware of them after they’ve happened.

Uncomfortable truths
Coming back to reading to your children, it’s actually its 49%, which seemed quite high to me. I was never read to as a child and have never read to my children but we’re all avid readers. Honor Wilson-Fletcher (why do they always have such unlikely and posh names?) tells us that it is unequivocally good for us. But their report uncovers some other uncomfortable truths; that most parents put on ‘posh’ vices for heroes and ‘working class’ voices for villains. More worrying is the fact that CS Lewis’s ‘Lion, Witch and Wardrobe’ is one of the most popular reads – according to Tolkein a ‘blatant and naïve’ piece of fundamentalist Christian propaganda (the book is much loved by America fundamentalists).

Does reading to your child make any educational difference?
The study relies on a YouGov survey of 2,200 parents, and is all a bit hokey. A better source for data is the ECLS study from the US, a massive study on a cross-section of 20,000 children across the US. The results are wonderfully unpacked in Steve Levitt’s marvelous ‘Freakonomics’. Interestingly, having lots of books in your home is highly correlated with educational attainment, but ‘parents reading to their children’ is NOT. I never did feel guilty about not reading Narnia to my kids, as I was always keen that they did more active play and reading on their own.

Learning may be bad for us

The Baldwin Effect, first put forward by the psychologist James Baldwin in 1896, claims that specific selection takes place on the ability to learn. For some it puts learning at the heart of evolutionary theory.

In an interesting spin on the role of learning in evolution, Tadeuskz Kawecki at the University of Fribourg, has suggested that evolution mostly selects against learning. For most animals, it’s better to be plain dumb. We know that learning is a feature of even very primitive worms, with as little as 302 neurons. They learn to avoid disease-ridden bacteria. However, in fruit fly experiments, Kawecki has found that when he put smart, learning flies in with dumber flies, the smart flies died faster.

Most species may reach an optimal equilibrium between learning and instinct. Learning, it turns out, produces species that need and over-abundance of experience to survive, making them vulnerable just after they’re born. We humans are the most extreme learners, and it takes years of rearing before we can survive on our own. But as we’ve shot ahead of our equilibrium between learning and survival, there seems to be no limit to our ability to learn how to destroy each other and the very planet we inhabit. The ability to learn may, in the end, have been our death warrant.

One policy to massively increase school results

We know that knowledge and skills need regular practice and reinforcement, preferably spaced-practice, to consolidate retention and recall. Yet our education system at all levels does its best to insert a huge ‘forgetting period’ right in the middle of the year. The July to September holiday, originally designed around agricultural harvesting and fruit picking, leads to serious summer learning loss, undoing much of the good work done in the last term before the long break.

A well regarded think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, has recommended five eight-week terms, with two weeks off between and one month in summer. Some weight is given to this new structure as an Essex school, which has adopted the new system, saw a huge hike in their exam results. Pupils gaining five good GCSEs at Greensward College in Hockley went up from 70 per cent to 88 per cent.

Of course, this is a relatively small piece of evidence, but if it were replicated across many schools, this one act alone would do more to increase productivity in learning than every other initiative over the last decade. Of course, we all know why the long summer break exists – teachers love them.

Txtng: The Gr8 Db8

This is the title of a new book by David Crystal. Its enuf to snd Lynne Truss and John Humphries rnd the bnd. An increasing amout of evidence is emerging from Professor David Crystal, Beverly Plester and research I blogged about in June 97 from the University of Nottingham, that shows texting to be a useful accelerator in literacy. Far from turning people into illiterates, it helps with reading, writing, vocabulary and spelling skills.

David Crystal, author of the excellet Cambirge Ecyclopedia of language is one of the few serious linguistics academics to look in depth at texting and the impact of the internet on langauge(s). His 2002 book, where framing in emails, hyperlinks and other phenomena are examined was a good start. His observations on blogging are also interesting. He sees the internet as a window on raw language i.e. language as it is actually used. Not since Chaucer has this been the case. All sort of variants in terms of spelling, punctuation and expressions can be studied in this ‘real’ environment.

$75 laptop breakthrough

The $100 green plastic laptop had a Toys R Us feel to it, but the new model, at $75, is stunning.

The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project has produced a book-like device with two hinged touch screens. It’s smaller, lighter and looks like a book.

You’ve got to admire those guys at MIT.

Damn fine feedback

Some positive feedback on a report on 'feedback'. There's a damn fine report (FREE) from Will Thalheimer. Check out his well-researched list on what makes for good feedback. What's surprising is the sophistication of the 21 recommendations, especially around retrieval. There's lots to digest and learn from here, whether you're a teacher, trainer or e-learning designer. All hail to Will!

You're Wii too fat!

You’re fat!
Having bust a gut on Guitar Hero but lost very little sweat, who would have thought that videogames would have thrust me into the middle of 'health and fitness'? This is the dawn of casual gaming where games shift in different directions away from their adolescent, adrenaline-rush rut.

The Wii Balance Board is selling squillions and surprised everyone by putting fitness in gaming. Start with your weight and body-mass index. They’ve had to tone down the language from the Japanese to US version as it said things like ‘You’re Fat!’ Personally, I like the blunt approach to obesity.

Personal profile
You have a personal profile, so that you can set weight-loss goals and it the tracks your progress. It offers; Yoga, Exercises, Exercise Games and Balance Games As you do your yoga, and try the poses, your performance will be tracked, as your centre of gravity is measured (it’s fundamentally two scales glued together). You are give personal high scores, that drive you towards improvement.

Serious sweat
But it’s not all about posing and balance. You can do serious gym stuff to improve strength and muscles. Try press ups and the board will measure your strength and when you’ve done 6, unlock the 10 then 20 targets. It really does know when you’ve fluffed a press-up. You’ll break serious sweat with this thing. Then there’s the jogging game – you’ll definitely sweat on this one. And if that ain’t enough, there’s boxing for upper body exercise - skis, snowboards etc.

Serious health
It’s already being trialled in rehabilitation trials in medicine, with disabled patients, elderly patients and so on. We’re clearly at the start of something rather big here.

Amazing 1954 prediction

Text says:
Scientists from the RAND corporation have created this model to illustrate how a "Home Computer" could look like in the year 2004. However, the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype interface and the FORTRAN language, the computer will be easy to use.
This prediction, in 1954 shows how wrong one can be!

Computers - masculine or feminine?

Sorry - I'm in a funny sort of mood today.............

A language teacher was explaining to her class that in French, nouns, unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine.

For example, "House" in French, is feminine - "la maison", "Pencil" in French, is masculine - "le crayon". One puzzled student asked, "What gender is a computer?"

The teacher did not know, and the word was not in her French dictionary.

So for fun she split the class into two groups appropriately enough, by gender, and asked them to decide whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun.

Both groups were required to give four reasons for their recommendation.

The men's group decided that computer should definitely be of the feminine gender ('la computer"), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later review; and

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your pay on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine ('le computer"), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on.

2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves.

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

Training video - funny as hell

Utterly hilarious spoof training session.

I literally fell off my couch laughing at this.

Boring lecture interrupted by singing student

Brilliant three minute video where some students stand up in a lecture to deliver a musical complaint to the lecturer about boring teaching. It's fun but really a plea from one generation to another to stop boring them to death.

Interesting that the student shows innovation and performance skills then the smartness to get this on Google Video. How many lecturers would be brave enought to record and distribute their lecture?

LYRICS
I've got a question -- what I mean is. . . it's just. . .
We come to class everyday it seems, we all fall asleep we've lost all our dreams.
There is no inspiration.
But when did we become this way, so disillusioned? So blasé?
I can't make the calculation.
Can I borrow your TI-83?

Have you thought for a while
about the impact that you have on us?

I think it's high time that you tried
to extend your learning on to us and reach!
Are you with me classmates?

What about that guy over there? Why aren't you taking notes? Don't you even care?
This is your education.
This girl sitting over here, she talks a lot in class but her thoughts are never really quite clear.
So much mental masturbation
Is it we..who are to blame.

All the professors in movies and TV
like "Dead Poets Society,"
and they risk their very professions for the chance
to be inspirations to kids like me!

It's no wonder why we're here.
You must think we only party and drink beer.

But all we need is just one chance...
to be treated as your equals and to dance.

It's no wonder why we're here.
You must think we only party and drink beer.
I think it's high time that you tried
to extend your learning.. on.. to.. us.. and REACH! TEACH! ...

Working memory down from 5-9 to 3-4

7 plus and minus 2

The famous George Miller paper ‘The Magic Number 7 Plus and Minus Two’ has turned out to be rather optimistic. In practice, research from the University of Missouri has shown that working memory struggles beyond three or four items. Try remembering the letters IFCMBAIBI.

Working memory is what we use most of the time to function and is critical in problem solving and maths as we need to hold several items in the mind for comparison and manipulation. We know that we have as little as three or four working registers so if we store IFCMBAIBI as IBM-CIA-FBI, it’s easy. This article appeared in April’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This has important ramifications in learning as it lowers the bar on the possibility of cognitive overload. The lesson is that fewer items need to be presented at any one time and that chunking becomes very important.

$50 whiteboard - honestly

This astounding video shows how to turn the Wii remote into cheap Whiteboard. Forget spending 2-3k on one of these gizmos. This Wiill knock your socks off.

With the Nintendo DS, Brain Training, the Wii, other consoles and dirt cheap laptops, we may now see consumer electronics transform learning. E-learning seems to be creeping up from behind into homes via the games industry.