All around us, people are learning with the aid of new computer technologies. Children play complex video games, workers get advanced degrees through on-line courses, commercial learning centers prepare students for tests, and everyone on the web references Wikipedia. Allan Collins discusses how such technologies create learning opportunities that challenge the traditional schooling model of standardized testing and teaching. This new model is one characterized by learner customization, interaction, and control.
Collins acknowledges that this new approach has possible disadvantages. Greater use of the internet may discourage societal concern and interdependence and exacerbate economic differences. But it may also provide advantages such as making learners better able to evaluate and apply information.
We are beginning to rethink the nature of learning, motivation, and what is important to learn, says Collins, and we will have to keep changing to benefit from it.
(We regret that the audio quality of this program is not up to our usual standards, due to a technical problem with the live recording.)
Allan Collins is professor emeritus of Learning Sciences at Northwestern University. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the Cognitive Science Society, the American Educational Research Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He served, along with Don Norman and Roger Schank, as a founder of the journal Cognitive Science and was first chair of the Cognitive Science Society. He is best known in psychology for his work on how people answer questions, in artificial intelligence for his work on reasoning and intelligent tutoring systems, and in education for his work on situated learning, inquiry teaching, design research, and cognitive apprenticeship.
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