Story on current state of brain research from NY Times.

PSA is about supporting and enabling learning in a number of “fields” of human endeavor, and we strive to base our tools on the best knowledge and awareness of what that involves.

The human brain is of course the #1 tool for learning…and despite the decades or centuries of traditional theory and methods that exists, and despite the new cloud tools that are being created as we write… a big chunk of optimally enabling learning involves understanding how the brain works.

Which we don’t, as yet. Any progress in learning how the brain works thus has big implications for the work that PSA is doing. Many of our present assumptions about how to best support learning will turn out to be wrong when new research reveals more about how the brain does learning. Just one of the hazards, or opportunities, of working in this field.

Oh, and besides potentially taking a pill to enhance learning, or “jacking in” with built-in electrodes in our brain to “the net”… favorite sci-fi tropes… we may also have to start considering whether reading writing and arithmetic are the ongoing mainstays for our children’s future. For example, handwriting may well become all but obsolete within the foreseeable future.