The Evolution of Learning
ENTERTAINMENT WILL CHANGE THE WAY OUR CHILDREN LEARN!

Education, be it in the form of institutionalized curriculums, interactive software, or on-line programs is currently meeting with a fierce competition from entertainment. This is so because entertainment caters to its users interests. This, of coarse, is what we observe on the surface level. The underlying principle at work is that entertainment has the ability to dictate interests to a person in a way that is appealing, enticing and exciting. It makes believers of its users. As a result, learning for learning sake is not very appealing to most would-be learners. The truth of the matter is that people have a natural desire to learn. We are naturally inquisitive and make an instinctual effort to build up deeper and deeper understandings of ourselves and the world around us. Somewhere along the way, however, many of us become disenchanted with learning. As educational content is geared more toward established curriculum and less towards our individual interests, the learning process gets to be laborious and repetitive. We become distracted from our natural desire to pursue meaning and end up moving toward the more eye-catching content offered by the entertainment field.

It is for this reason that education must evolve to recapture our
attention, to realize how involved is the nature of our existence, and to inspire us to follow our own unique curiosities. This is a declaration of an active alliance dedicated to the guidance of this evolution.

Information Technology is in the midst of a similar shift. Where many different interfaces were once designed for essentially the same task and where they were once loaded with countless bells and whistles intended to enrich the user experience, we are beginning to see that such methods have not enriched people's lives as much as they have complicated them. Out of this realization comes the notion that technology should be transparent. Where we once had a tool-centric point of view, we are now moving to a user-centric point of view. Indeed, if our hope is to develop technology which truly enhances the learning experience then we must, likewise, adopt an attitude toward education that is learner-centric as opposed to curriculum-centric.

In education and technology alike, the common ground lies in focusing our efforts on the needs and interests of the people using the tools. We must develop educational content and technology that is generated from the needs and interests of the learners as opposed to trying to generate interest and needs based on the technologies and curriculums we develop.

Prepared by Hai Dai