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Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Myth Persistence

Clark Quinn, Learnlets, Oct 07, 2022

There's a cluster of writers, mostly in the corporate learning space, who think it's really really important to 'bust myths' about ed tech. Here we have Clark Quinn running through a few perennial favourites: learning preferences, unlearning, gamification, tech transformation. Here's the problem with this approach: if you pick on a straw man version of any of these then yes, you can make a case that it's a 'myth'. And probably there are people in the corporate learning space pushing these straw man versions. But at the same time, there are more nuanced presentations of each of these that are not myths, but they get caught up in the same discussion. And it results in absurdities. For example, Quinn writes, "There's no evidence that adapting to learners' preferred or identified styles makes a difference." Really? My 'preference' is to have learning delivered in English. I can get by if it's in French, but would be lost if it were in Arabic. No difference? This 'myth' is a myth. Clearly some preferences really do matter.

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