> Typing on a smartphone, using a word processor, or drawing on a digital tablet hasn't produce better communicators, typists or artists. People today can acco

> Typing on a smartphone, using a word processor, or drawing on a digital tablet hasn't produce better communicators, typists or artists. People today can accomplish tasks faster, but not necessarily better. If you and I were having this conversation 100 years ago, I'd be typing these words on a mechanical typewriter [...] "If you and I were having this conversation 1000 years ago, I'd be a scribe in a royal court writing these words with a quill. If anything, the quality of my writing would probably have been better in that scenario. [...] but it does not lead to any significant changes in how I learn or how I think." Though I think it fun that someone in 1500's Spain might be rumored to have made a deal with Devil, based on being able to read not only silently, but, gasp, without moving their lips! How to put this. I suggest you are vastly underestimating the importance of environment to accomplishment. The technology version of a wealthy kid's "growing up in poverty wouldn't have made any difference - I'm just naturally good at things". > but do they make it easier to learn how to draw? iPad, drawing apps, and an ecosystem of artist youtube videos, versus... let's say, a snail-mail booklet from scam "Learn to Draw!" advertisements in the back classifieds of 1960's Popular Mechanics? Um, yes. > However, if you remove all those diagrams and animations you don't really lose much - everything in that essay is described in words well enough to get the idea across. One bit of progress in teaching over recent years, has been the slow realization that "get[ting] the idea across" isn't the hard part. But rather pruning misconceptions and firming understanding. Students and their teachers remain steeped in misconceptions. A main lesson of physics education research has been that if you think you're teaching successfully, then you're also not testing successfully. worrydream's work is an attempt at being less badly unsuccessful.