How Technology Influences Modern Learning

The latest OECD Education and Skills report (link in comments) on the impact of digital technologies makes one thing clear: technology alone does not improve learning. Its impact depends on how we use it - to empower students, deepen thinking, and connect learning to real life. At the American International School of Guangzhou, this aligns directly with our Transformative Learning Framework. We’re not asking “What can this tool do?” but rather “How can technology support and enable transformative learning?” OECD Findings → AISG’s Transformative Learning Framework: • Personalisation → AI and analytics can tailor pathways, but only when guided by strong pedagogy. • Agency → The biggest gains come when students use tech to make choices and own their learning journey. • Authenticity → Digital tools shine when they connect students to real audiences, issues, and contexts. • Creativity → Coding, multimedia, and design platforms foster innovation when scaffolded thoughtfully. • Collaboration → Tech should strengthen relationships and collective problem-solving, not isolate learners. • Taking Action → The true impact comes when students apply knowledge to create change and meaningful outcomes. Technology isn’t an add-on. When used intentionally, it amplifies the conditions of transformative learning - helping our students grow as personalised, agentic, authentic, creative, collaborative, and action-oriented learners…

How well are we preparing our young learners for the demands of the 21st-century workforce? As the 21st century redefines the boundaries of work and technology, the question is no longer if we should change, but how fast teachers and other stakeholders can adapt their strategies to prepare our young learners for the realities of this new era. The integration of digital technology and AI has fundamentally changed how we communicate with one another, work, access information and solve problems. It has become an extension of how we think and operate in the world. As a result, it has become essential for contemporary education to evolve in response to these realities. In the past, teaching and learning centred on the transmission of knowledge to learners and ensuring that they can reproduce the knowledge when required. However, in an era where information is readily available at the click of a button, this approach is no longer productive. Digital technologies and AI tools can now perform many of the tasks that were traditionally taught in schools. Consequently, the purpose of education MUST be redefined. We must stop training learners to compete with machines! Instead, we must cultivate the capacities that technology cannot easily replicate: Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) like critical reflection, logical reasoning and creative problem-solving. If we fail to teach these skills, we risk preparing learners for a world that no longer exists. Here is how we shift the needle today: For Educators: ▶️ Don’t skip the basics, but don’t linger there either. ▶️Allow students to grapple with complex problems without giving them the answer immediately. This helps build their cognitive “muscle” required for creative problem solving. ▶️Encourage students to build their digital storytelling skills. They should find different ways to design their thoughts and perspectives outside of the traditional essay. For Instructional Designers: ▶️Move beyond multiple-choice quizzes. Design graphic organiser-style exercises and role-playing scenarios for analysis, peer-review forums for evaluation and project-based submissions for creation. For Curriculum Developers: ▶️Create units that connect subjects together. ▶️Ensure that national or school-wide standards place more importance on the application of knowledge than on the volume of content covered. ▶️Explicitly build design thinking into the curriculum as a formal methodology for problem-solving. For School Owners & Administrators: ▶️Shift teacher training away from managing classrooms and towards “facilitating” discussions in the classroom. ▶️Redesign learning spaces to allow for collaborative zones that facilitate group discussion. ▶️Measure school success not just by standardised test scores (these tests lower-level skills), but by student portfolios and projects. #Education #LessonPlanning #EdTech #HigherOrderThinking #BloomsTaxonomy #FutureOfLearning #TeachingStrategies

#AI in #education is one of the hottest topics - with research evidence suggesting that the net effect is negative. We have the opposite take - the problem isn't with AI but with the educational paradigm. Here is a passage (draft) from Adopting AI. Your critical feedback is welcome! AI's impact on education is generating intense debate, with some of the most prominent research in early 2025 suggesting that students who use AI show declines in critical thinking skills. On homework and essays at the high school and college level, even basic AI models can generate comprehensive, “A-plus” answers to difficult questions almost instantly. While this shift may seem concerning, we argue it’s not a problem—it’s simply a signal that education must adapt. Traditional education has long relied on students memorizing and regurgitating information, often in the form of questions like, “Which technologies did the Roman Empire develop, and how did they help it conquer Europe?” In the past, students might have had to research and synthesize an answer themselves. But now, AI can provide an answer in seconds, allowing the student to copy it and tweak a few words to make it “their own”—without much true learning happening. AI, however, should not be feared. Instead, it can encourage a paradigm shift in how we approach education. With the ability for any AI-literate student to generate facts and insights, it’s up to teachers to demand more from their students. Instead of simply recalling facts, students should be asked to critically engage with the information. How was that the same or different than the Ottoman or British Empires? What features of Roman civilization enabled such prodigious invention? Which technologies from conquered territories helped the Romans accelerate the pace of invention? Bloom’s Taxonomy, a framework for evaluating learning, highlights that basic factual recall is the lowest level of cognitive skill. Students should be pushed to go beyond this: to understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. This is where AI can truly shine—by taking over the more mundane aspects of learning, allowing students to focus on higher-order thinking. With the right guidance from skilled educators, AI can serve as a tool to enhance critical thinking and scholarship. It may even help develop these skills at younger ages, challenging the outdated paradigm of rote memorization. It should set a floor for learning, not a ceiling. Far from dumbing down education, AI has the potential to raise the standard for what students can achieve—and could provide personalized, high-quality education to children regardless of location or socioeconomic background. By 2030, AI tutors may revolutionize the educational landscape, creating immersive, accessible learning experiences that nurture creativity and collaboration, preparing the next generation to tackle humanity’s biggest challenges.

Studying in 2025 and beyond is not the same as when we were kids. Students today widely use research-driven techniques designed to improve retention, focus, and problem-solving. Here are some of the commonly used techniques: - Active Recall: Instead of rereading, students test themselves. Every question forces the brain to retrieve information, which strengthens memory. - Spaced Repetition: Instead of cramming, reviews happen at widening intervals such as after one day, three days, one week, and one month, bringing material back just before forgetting. This dramatically improves long-term retention. - Pomodoro: Short, intense work cycles paired with timed breaks keep students fresh and prevent burnout. Focus becomes a structured habit, not an accident. - Chunking: Students divide complex material into smaller, meaningful units. The brain handles organization, not overload. - Interleaving: Rather than studying one topic in isolation, students mix subjects and problem types. This teaches the brain to select the right approach in real situations and improves exam performance. Many of us may have used some of these approaches when we were kids, sometimes without knowing what they were called. But we never had access to software that could enforce consistency, automate the process, or measure results. These software tools make the techniques far more powerful and effective. On top of that, many of today's platforms have incorporated AI, which amplifies these methods even further. These modern study tools are turning PDFs into inquiry-based lessons. The system asks a question, the student answers, and it responds with what was correct and what was missed. It tracks weaknesses, repeats them later until mastery, and pushes accountability. It is the closest thing to having a personal coach whose only job is to make sure you are truly ready for the test. Some platforms even include an oral conversation mode that asks verbal questions and forces spoken explanations like a live tutor. Examples of such platforms include memo.cards and Studley AI. Reviewing tools like these is no longer optional. They accelerate learning, prevent wasted hours, and allow students to compete with peers who are already using them. In a world where efficiency matters, smart studying is becoming a prerequisite, not a luxury. While we may have warned against allowing AI to help students do the work, this is an exception because it does not complete the work for them. Instead, it tests them until they truly learn the material.

The shift toward #onlinelearning is enhancing #highered's ability to meet all students where they are. But much work still remains to educate all relevant stakeholders—including policymakers, institutional leaders, and even students’ families—about the potential benefits tech-enabled learning can yield. As the president of Western Governors University, I recognize the unique role I can play in elevating this discussion. Today, both innovative online universities and established brick-and-mortar institutions are leveraging technology to provide students with greater flexibility and personal ownership over their experience; recently it was reported that 70% of college students are enrolled in at least one online course. But offering online courses or even programs doesn’t necessarily mean an institution is fully capitalizing on technology’s potential. As with any innovation, its potential rests in how it’s deployed. Unfortunately, online learning is often deployed with the same artificial constraints that exist in traditional models of learning, ensuring its impact will be limited. (It's been said before, but I'll say it again: delivering lectures via Zoom is not quality online learning). In stark contrast, effective online learning design should be purposefully designed for the virtual environment, leveraging digital tools and approaches that would be difficult to replicate in-person, at scale. Thanks to advances in technology, for instance, readily available data on how students are doing can empower faculty to reach out to students in need—and critically before they fall too far behind and get discouraged. At WGU, we use machine intelligence to better understand our students’ momentum at a given moment, drawing on indicators such as how they’re interacting with learning resources, the extent to which they’re engaging with faculty, and how they’re progressing. By identifying when students have less momentum and are in greater need of support, our faculty are empowered to design personalized interventions when students need them the most, which we’ve shown improves retention and progression. Compiling this sophisticated level of actionable information simply would not be possible without the support of technology. I’d love to know—how else are you seeing online learning deployed deliberately and effectively?

Every generation misjudges risk. We overcorrect what’s visible and underweight what’s invisible. Lead paint was once normal until it wasn’t. Cigarettes were socially embedded for decades before the evidence became too overwhelming. Today we face a quieter question: what has widespread digital immersion done to attention and learning, particularly for our youth? In 2024 alone, the U.S. spent more than $30 billion putting laptops and tablets into schools. Maine began distributing laptops to middle schoolers more than twenty-five years ago. Fifteen years into that program, test scores had not improved. In recent testimony to Congress, neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath, PhD, MEd noted that Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than the one before it. International assessment data shows a troubling pattern: more time on computers in school correlates with lower scores. In one university study, students were off-task on their laptops nearly two-thirds of the time. This is not an argument against technology. It's an argument for preserving the friction that builds independent minds. The primary aim of technology is to remove friction, but some friction is good for us. As Horvath put it, “Learning is effortful, difficult, and oftentimes uncomfortable. But it’s the friction that makes learning deep and transferable into the future.” That friction is not a flaw. It is the mechanism that builds strength, memory, and growth. Progress without reflection is just momentum. Every generation eventually discovers the risk it underestimated. The only question is whether we pause long enough to reconsider the path. #Education #Learning #Technology #Attention #CognitiveDevelopment #Parenting #AI #BehavioralDesign #FutureOfWork

Gen Z is the first generation in over a century to score lower on core cognitive measures than the one before it. Screen saturated schooling is a central reason why. Neuroscientist and educator Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, PhD, MEd testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on what he described as a measurable reversal in cognitive development trends across the developed world. For most of the twentieth century, average cognitive performance steadily rose, a pattern known as the 'Flynn Effect'. Beginning in the mid 2000s, that trend stalled. In multiple domains, it has now reversed. Horvath argued that foundational cognitive skills required for deep learning are weakening, even as educational investment and classroom technology have expanded. Evidence shows a consistent pattern across more than 80 countries: Students who report higher daily computer use in classrooms perform worse in reading, maths, and science. More screen exposure corresponds to lower performance across income levels and national contexts. Apparent benefits attributed to moderate classroom technology use disappear once testing mode effects are controlled for. When assessments shifted from paper to digital formats, students with limited device familiarity were penalized, creating the illusion that screen use improved learning. When this distortion is removed, the advantage vanishes. When digital interventions are benchmarked against ordinary classroom instruction, most general use educational technologies underperform standard teaching. One to one laptop programs, fully online instruction, and broad classroom technology integration consistently fall below traditional methods. Only narrowly constrained tools, such as adaptive drills for basic skills, show modest gains, and even these do not strengthen deep understanding. The data reflects a mismatch between how human cognition develops and how digital platforms structure attention. Human attention systems are not designed for constant task switching. Digital environments are. Even in academic settings, screens condition habits of rapid checking, fragmented focus, and shallow processing. Memory formation weakens. Comprehension suffers. Sustained attention, deep reading, and complex reasoning are being systematically undertrained. Handwritten note taking, for instance, outperforms typing because it requires summarization and conceptual organization rather than transcription. The testimony does not claim that technology is inherently harmful but that that large scale, unregulated digital adoption has produced a structural mismatch between learning environments and cognitive development. Intelligence is being reshaped. Screens change how students think. Education policy shapes national cognitive capacity decades into the future. If classrooms are optimized for device use and engagement metrics rather than how human cognition develops, the consequences should not surprise us.

𝐄𝐝𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡’𝐬 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞: 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐒𝐚𝐲𝐬 A recent piece in The Economist offers a sobering reckoning with five decades of classroom technology. The story of McPherson Middle School in Kansas, which recently rolled back laptop-centric learning after disappointing results, mirrors what rigorous research has been warning for years. Despite bold claims of “personalization” and “adaptive learning,” large-scale evidence remains thin. A 2024 meta-analysis of 119 studies on early-literacy technologies led by researchers at Stanford University found, at best, marginal test score gains. Many interventions showed no effect or even negative outcomes. Neuroscientist reviews covering tens of thousands of studies reach a blunt verdict: 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺 𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘵. And yet spending continues to surge. American schools now spend around $30 billion annually on edtech within a $165 billion global industry. Adoption has been driven less by evidence than by marketing, free pilots, and the administrative appeal of dashboards and automation. Teachers often report not liberation, but added surveillance, compliance work, and fragmented attention. The most troubling signal is longitudinal. National reading and subject scores in the US rose steadily until around 2012–15, precisely when in-class screen use accelerated. Since then, performance has declined. Cross-national data show a consistent pattern: heavier classroom computer use correlates with lower achievement, while classrooms with minimal or no device use tend to perform best. Why? Distraction is only the surface problem. Many platforms privilege gamification over concept mastery, short feedback loops over sustained thinking, and screen mediation over human interaction. Digital drills can help in narrow domains like spelling, arithmetic, or specific learning disabilities. But transfer beyond the app environment remains weak. Researchers increasingly argue for age-sensitive restraint. For younger children, peer and teacher interaction matters more than any interface. For older students, technology works only when its use is limited, intentional, and clearly subordinate to pedagogy. More than a decade ago, Bill Gates suggested it would take ten years to know whether edtech really works. Hundreds of billions later, the answer is clearer than the marketing suggests. Perhaps the most unsettling question raised by the article is this: 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐟 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐚 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐬, 𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝? #EdTech #EducationResearch #EvidenceBasedPolicy #LearningSciences #TeachingAndLearning #ClassroomPractice #DigitalEducation

Back to Basics: Why Sweden’s Shift Away from Screens Deserves Attention Recent discussions about schools in Sweden moving away from excessive screen use and returning to books, handwriting, and direct instruction raise an important educational question: Have we confused digital access with deep learning? Technology is powerful. But it is a tool — not a pedagogy. Scenario 1 – When Screens Dominate (The Drawback) A Grade 5 classroom relies heavily on tablets. Students type all assignments, read from digital texts, and complete assessments online. At first glance, engagement looks high — devices are open, screens are bright. However:    •   Students struggle to sustain attention beyond short tasks.    •   Reading comprehension drops when texts are long.    •   Writing lacks structure because autocorrect and predictive text compensate for weak spelling and grammar foundations.    •   Handwriting fluency declines, affecting cognitive processing and memory retention. Over time, teachers notice that while students are digitally fluent, their depth of thinking, patience, and analytical writing skills weaken. Research increasingly suggests that handwriting activates different neural pathways linked to memory consolidation and conceptual understanding. Scenario 2 – Balanced Traditional Foundations (The Merit) Now imagine another classroom where:    •   Students read physical books.    •   They annotate margins.    •   They write summaries by hand before drafting digitally.    •   Discussions happen face-to-face before any device is used. In this setting:    •   Students build stamina for deep reading.    •   Writing by hand strengthens retention and cognitive clarity.    •   Classroom dialogue improves communication and critical thinking.    •   Technology is used intentionally — not constantly. The result? Students are not anti-technology. They are digitally competent AND cognitively strong. This conversation is not about rejecting innovation. It is about protecting foundational skills: - Deep reading - Structured writing - Focus and sustained attention - Cognitive endurance - Human interaction Perhaps the question is not “Digital or Traditional?” The real question is: Are we using technology to enhance thinking or replace it? As educators and leaders, balance is not a trend. It is a responsibility.

A new study examining the long-run effects of the One Laptop per Child program in rural #Peru provides important evidence for digital education policy. The program substantially increased students’ computer skills over time, but it did not translate into measurable improvements in academic achievement, school completion, or later educational transitions. The results underline a central consideration for digital transformation agendas: access to devices on its own is unlikely to generate sustained learning gains. Effective integration of technology requires complementary investments in teacher training, pedagogical support, and curriculum alignment. As countries expand digital initiatives, it is important to consider how technology can be leveraged more strategically to strengthen teaching and learning. Full study here: https://lnkd.in/eV-_73z7 National Bureau of Economic Research Santiago Cueto Caballero Diether Beuermann Julian Cristia Ofer Malamud  Francisco Pardo Pajuelo Sonia Suarez Enciso Gabriela Gambi Elena Arias Ortiz