Improve learning techniques with technology

I’m still learning things because I am a lifelong learner. I’m looking to improve learning techniques with technology because that’s the way I roll. Diving deep in the subject is one way of making sure you learn things fully. So if you’re learning to speak a new language then you should go to that country and be fully immersed. This means you go there without a friend so you have to make new friends who speak the new language your learning. No falling back onto using your present language for any of the time while you are in your new home. I’ve done this in Germany, France and Spain and when the need is there to communicate you do really want to work harder and improve. The deep dive into a subject like coding and programming you immerse yourself by committing to a specific amount of time per day. You can do the same sort of thing with your language learning when you’re back in your home country. Set a reminder in your Calendar application or in the Reminders application. This way you can create a habit and a daily learning streak. This is another way to improve learning techniques with technology. There are applications available to implicitly create habits and to count your daily streak for your habit. You’d be amazed in what you can accomplish by setting up such a system.

Memrise App

Cool app for learning new languages. I started with the web version of this service but it’s always nice to have it packaged into an application.

Improved learning – you’re a student and it is a basic requirement

When I was a student in school and even when I was a teacher in schools it seems to me the how-to of learning is not covered. Teachers have expectations of students just following the instructions and doing the work. Students are expected to have a muscle memory or kind of just know what is needed to be a good student. I sometimes think it would be great for students to be taught how to make the best of their talents as learners. When learning something new pupils of the class would know it’s necessary to review material in class. This is the point of the homework. The tasks set is not just for testing purposes to see if something was learned. Homework tasks are for providing a repetition of the content. This is to make sure the content goes towards long-term memory rather than being immediately forgotten. This sort of repetition need to be done at intervals such as one day later, a week later and a couple of weeks later or maybe a month. We can improve learning techniques with technology, using it to schedule subject matter reviews. It will be possible with an application like OmniFocus to set a timetable whenever you have a new set of information to be learned. If students were to know why and how these methods would work they might be inclined to try them. Teachers just setting homework and going over things in class is just kind of hoping for the best. Maybe some schools do tell the students about the learning process and how to be successful as a student.

Lifelong learner – Always improving the mind

Many people when they finish school vow they will never ever read another book. Being forced to do it for so many years while being in education has the possibility of turning you off learning. I have spoken to people who are delighted to tell me that they can’t remember the last time they read a book. The most reading they would do would be to perhaps read a newspaper or more likely these days read something on Facebook or Twitter. These people probably don’t even like to read the operating instructions for a new device or machine like a washing machine in the home. This is why some technology has to be made idiot proof.

The world has changed and the job market has changed with it it is now necessary to be a lifelong learner. Being able to learn new things is absolutely vital to keep yourself relevant in the job market. It doesn’t have to be that difficult now we can improve learning techniques with technology. I’m learning how to code, do Swift programming with an application called Tapcoding. It has made a game of the learning process. You get access to further modules by completing a streak of a certain number of days. This way the application knows you are ready to move onto the next module in the coding process. I’m surprised it doesn’t also have a way of not letting you move onto the next stage unless you get a level of competency. A minimum number of questions right in the tests. What I do is to repeat the module if I get too many questions wrong. Or I will repeat the module if I get a question wrong and I don’t understand why my answers were incorrect. I also go back and repeat modules if when I’m working in a subsequent section I can’t remember one of the previous concepts from the lessons. It seems to be a plan is working finally on the way my brain works and it’s starting to make some sense in my head.