Learn how humanity learned in the past, how we learn in the present and how we may learn in the future.

1. The Evolution of Human Learning
By Richard Hart – www.richardhart.ca

2. Our Unique Gifts
I believe our species has been endowed with at least 4
fundamental gifts that combine to make us unique.
1. We have been given the gift of not only adapting to a
particular environment, but the ability to adapt to
change itself.
2. As far as we know, we are the only species with the
power to envision a future which has not yet come to
pass and make such futures reality via our actions.
3. The ability to work together and share knowledge
4. Our ability to create and use technology

3. How did we get where we are
today?
In order to understand how we got to where we are
today, we need to look at where we started out.
By understanding how human learning has evolved,
we can better understand our current state and
possibly gain insight into how things may change in the
future.

4. About 200,000 Years Ago....
● We clustered
together in small
groups/tribes for
survival
● Knowledge learned
via experience and
observation and
mimicry
● Primary storage
medium for
knowledge was the
brain.

5. Before 3500 BC
● Most knowledge was
passed down aurally
via stories, rituals,
songs and legends.
● Spoken language
continued to develop
● Good memory skills
were still vital as
written language did
not exist.

6. 3500 BC – First Written
Languages
● For first time ever
knowledge and ideas
can be written down!
● Low literacy rates
● Larger populations
● Agriculture advancing
● Get new ideas via
travel
● Learn by watching and
doing
● Good memory skills
still vital

7. 15th
and 16th
Century – Rise of
Modern Science
● The modern scientific method develops
● the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and
formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation
and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses
● We now had a powerful new way of learning about whatever we
focused on

8. 1450 – Printing Press
● Apprenticeship is common.
● Literacy becomes a real advantage.
● Books, mail and newspapers exist to those who can read.
● While books have
been around for a
while, they were hard
to come by for an
average person.
● Most people had no
formal schooling
● You could now mass
produce information
and distributive it to
the masses.

9. Early 1900's
● First state run public schools
begin to surface in North
America.
● School is mandatory up to a
certain age and modelled after a
system from Prussia (Germany).
● Formal education becomes
available to the masses.
● In many ways you can look at
formal education as a
technology.
● You have access to school,
books, newspapers, pencils and
slates and chalkboards.

10. Early 1900's continued...
● The electric light is invented,
which greatly increases ability to
study and read printed
materials.
● You can share now ideas and
communicate over long
distances via the postal system.
● The telegraph and Radio's also
exist and become new ways to
send information great
distances.
● Literacy rates begin to climb.
● The typewriter is invented
opening up new possibilities for
content production.

11. The Classroom/Lecture Model
of the 1900's
● The state decided on the knowledge it wishes to convey to the
students/citizens.
● The state hires and directs teachers on how the knowledge should
be taught.
● Students are broken up into age groups and assigned to classes.
● Each class has a teacher assigned to it.

12. The Classroom/Lecture Model
of the 1900's
● Students typically sit in desks and listen to their teacher lecture
● Students are evaluated by some criteria and if successful in meeting
certain criteria advance to the next grade level.
● If students complete all the required grade levels, they graduate from
school.
● Much of the population would complete at least elementary school and
the a fortunate few would continue on to higher education.

13. The Only Thing you Can Count on
is Change!
● This model has more less survived intact over the past 100
years but ...
● We live in a much different world than existed in the early
1900's.
● The rate of change we see in our world is accelerated by
technology.
● We've moved from the industrial age to the information
age.
● The technologies of language, writing, the postal system,
books, and television had a huge impact on the amount of
information available and the ability to extend and share
information with others.

14. Technology Timeline
● 1928 first TV broadcast
● 1951 First video recorder allowed for storage and playback of
information.
● 1958 Educational Television , new opportunities for large
numbers of kids/people to learn from home
● 1969 – ARPA --> The Internet is born
● 1980's --> Personal computers appear.
● 1993 --> First Web Browser (Mosaic)
● 1998 --> Google
● 2000 --> Rise of the smartphones
● 2001 --> Wikipedia
● 2004 --> Facebook
● 2007 --> iPhone

15. Age of Computers and Externalized
Thinking
● Computers represented a quantum
leap for humanity in that not only did
they allow enormous amounts of
information to be stored and
retrieved at will, they also unloaded
the need for information to be
processed by a human brains.
● Computers could perform
calculations, follow algorithms and
process data in volumes and at
speeds that simply just were not
possible by a human beings. Thy
allow us to examine and tackle
increasingly complex problems.

16. Computers Continued..
● Computers have also extended our ability to simulate reality and to
explore future possibilities and scenarios far into the future.
● With the introduction of the personal computer in the 1980's the
nature of business, education and learning were changed forever.
● While the industrial age allowed humanity to augment our muscle,
computers allowed us to augment our brain power in the age of
information.

17. The Internet and Computers are a
Game Changer
● Computers not only gave us the ability to offload information and
retrieve it at will, they also gave a powerful tool for learning that can
be used both in and outside the traditional context of school.
● In addition to offloading information, computers also allow us to
offload a great deal of thinking as well.
● Computers allowed us to enhance our ability to play with reality and
to envision new possibilities. Computer simulations can allow us to
overcome our short term thinking as a species and envision the
impact potential decisions may have on our future.
● The Internet gives an ever increasing portion of our species access to
our entire collective knowledge base.
● It also greatly facilitates the sharing and distribution of information.
● The amount of information available to an average human and the
ease in which this information can be added to and shared is
unparalleled in our history.

18. Moving Into the Future
● Human knowledge is growing at and exponential rate, aided and
accelerated by computing technologies and the Internet.
● How do we deal with information over abundance and constant
accelerating change?
● The model for education established in the 1900's may be ill
equiped to deal with this new reality. How can we improve it or do
we need to reinvent it?

19. Some Tough Challenges Ahead
for Humanity
● When presented with a crisis, our ability to learn and adapt as a
species is unparallelled. There are many challenges that we can
already foresee on the road ahead including:
● Climate change
● Energy Crisis
● Poverty and starvation
● Overpopulation
● And then there are the events and challenges we can not
predict...
● We will need the entire collective will and knowledge of our
species to solve these challenges. Everyone of us counts and
everyone of us can decide to work together to build a brighter
future.

20. Whats Old is New Again
So how do we cope with information explosion and
accelerated change we are experience and move into a
future we can not predict?
● Remember that evolution gave us the ability to adapt to
change itself. We as a species have the unique ability to
pretty much adapt to anything that gets thrown at us.
● Remember that we have the ability to imagine an infinite
number of possible futures for our species, and the ability
to work towards making them reality.
● Remember, that we are strongest as a species when we
work together, learn together and share knowledge and
ideas with each other.

21. Final Thought
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”
John Dewey

22. Want to learn more?
www.richardhart.ca
Follow me on Twitter at @richardhartca