Hey there, and welcome to our 85th foray with this EnT! We are grateful you’ve chosen to spend some time with us, as we discuss what learning consists of in post-modern, digitally-saturated times such as these… as well as associated and sundry questions, side-trips, and rabbit holes!

Here comes the #ednontech again! On the YouTube and hereabouts!

We have a lust for audio! And lifelong learning! #ednontech

This topic has put me in mind of one of my favorite novels and associated films of all time!

When Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting was unleashed in 1996, I was in grade 12 and deep into my long-running punk and alternative music phase— which is still going, fyi! My pal Mike had a copy of the novel which I borrowed and it hit me like what I assume heroin must feel like from the many descriptions of that drug in the novel, film, and in other places! My friends and I watched the screening that fall at UNB’s Capital Film Society, and I read everything I could by the Irvine Welsh who was then something of a poet laureate for Scottish degenerates. I knew there was something more than pop culture appeal going on with the film and novel in 1997 when Stewart Donovan, one of my favorite profs at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, assigned both as part of his outstanding course Fiction, Drama, and Film: A Study of Narrative. That was the course that cemented my decision to switch from a journalism degree to an Arts degree focusing on English and Philosophy.

Nearly 30 years later, I’m pleased to say Boyle’s film and Welsh’s novel both stand up as timeless versions of the same story. I am transported back effortlessly to downtown Fredericton in the late 90’s, an insecure punk with literary aspirations who somehow ended up in an educational career of sorts, having taught college and university English and educational studies classes at various points since then. As a sober, divorced father of two living through my second significant stretch of unemployment over the past four years, the “choose life” speech resonates now as much as it did when I was 18. Perhaps even more so! As we are all about lifelong learning on this EnT, this kind of connection, calling back across the years aligns with our message and our objective since the fall of 2022!

As we discussed in the recording, it feels like in many ways we’re just getting started!

It must be remembered that the test of real interest can only be revealed by intensiveness and continuity in the pursuit of a subject during a sufficiently long period.

Hanus, P. H. (1899). Educational aims and educational values. Macmillan Company.

Machines would be more useful if they could learn to perform tasks for which they were not given precise methods. … It is proposed that the program of a stored-program computer be gradually improved by a learning procedure which tries men, programs and chooses from the instructions that may occupy a given location, the one most associated with a successful result.

Friedberg, R. M. (1958). A learning machine: Part I. IBM Journal of Research and Development, 2(1), 2-13. Chicago

How voluntary, self-initiated, and proactive is adult learning?

People begin a major learning effort because they anticipate several desired outcomes or benefits that are interrelated.

Tough, A. (1979). Choosing to Learn.

The majority of learners stated they had taken the decision as a result of some particular trigger, or critical incident. 

O’Grady, A., & Atkin, C. (2006). Choosing to learn or chosen to learn: the experience of Skills for Life learners. Research in Post‐Compulsory Education, 11(3), 277-287.Chicago

Unlike Socrates’ prisoners, we are equipped with the ability to choose. We can select what we want to attend to, we can pick our favorite people to emulate, we can decide to play with one toy or another; we can look, we can ask, and we can act. Most importantly, in action we reap the benefits of effects. 

Bonawitz, E., Bass, I., & Lapidow, E. (2018). Choosing to Learn: Evidence evaluation for active learning and teaching in early childhood. In Active Learning from Infancy to Childhood: Social Motivation, Cognition, and Linguistic Mechanisms (pp. 213-231). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Lifelong learning remains a concept suffering from imprecise definitions, yet it is commonly understood as hinging upon the ability to retain previous knowledge while continuously integrating new insights into one’s cognitive framework

It is important to note that lifelong learning as a mindset implies the continued development of learning, for which current learning goals build up in the already mastered previous goals. 

Mendes, A., Greiff, S., & Bobrowicz, K. (2024). Approaching lifelong learning: An integrated framework for explaining decision-making processes in personal and professional development. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 35, 100230.

Choice

How can we support more people to make the decision to choose learning?

You have said a few things that resonate with me.

Digital firewood

Well, I’m just a modern guy
Of course, I’ve had it in the ear before
Well, I’ve a lust for life (lust for life)
‘Cause of a lust for life #ednontech