What do you do when you are out of cell phone service range or have no internet?. These are useful tools, but they do not replace actual learning. They merely supplement or facilitate it. Failure to master basic techniques can be fatal as Ian pointed out. I don't want to be in an aircraft piloted by someone who is reading the instructions on how to land the plane on his or her cell phone.

Hi Matt,

Well... The first point to clarify is what do we call information.

In the context of your question, information should Not be what is written somewhere, but the issue that exists in the head of someone.

So the problem, concerning evaluation of knowledge, is how to check the head-content. Obviously, the fact that one has access to some sources does not mean that he/she has knowledge or can reason and operate with the facts meaningfully.

We should Combine traditional methods of examination with digital literacy. This includes memory.

The relationships between the domains, the concepts, the principles, the constitution of an interrelated mental picture of a domain necessitates all types of memory. Well, one very unpleasant question is "what is human memory and how does it work". In big - it is not very clear. However, from a basic information processing point of view if there is no memory - there are no operations.

Best,

Velina

Really very good topic to discuss. The teaching and learning both are changing. I think in counties like India every student is and even teacher is not having access to digital technology. The persons who are digitally literature are having more scope for their carrier now a days.

I agree with velina

My understanding is that students with intrinsic motivation to learn, store the information in the long term memory and become knowledge. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation stores the information in short term memory which could be lost shortly after exams. Now it depends how the new teaching tools affect each type of motivation.

Granted that smartphones have revolutionized the modern day classroom, Both long and short term memory still quite important even with smartphones. you still need to find where you stored your info and you still need to know how to perform certain operation on the tablet

Many learners are helpless if there is no smartphone at that moment they urgently need information. To gain most information online doesn't support longtime memory. Smartphone and computer give relief for the moment. Traditional learning cultures became destroyed, seen the development of gaining information in a long-time mode. Reading books - no e-books - could be a way to strengthen longtime memory because such reading influences pictograms more sustainably than online-information which is also important, of course.

Would you like to be operated on by a surgeon who constantly has to Google procedures on his cellphone during the surgery?

Professionals have to keep such information in their long-term memories.

Children too should not have to Google to find out how to cross a busy road.

Obviously, those who will come closer to develop the perfect answer will know how to design the future learning systems.

Since not all children are the same, the learning is more personal than it has ever been before.

The differences will be more visibly therefore distinguished between those with good visual memory over those who were able to develop their own brain/mind system. Most doctors have a good visual memory so in the future, robots will perform the surgeries with more precision than humans do.

Yet, a student can not develop his/her own system of knowledge unless the information becomes diversified ( as in multiple sources) and easily accessible.

What do you do when you are out of cell phone service range or have no internet?. These are useful tools, but they do not replace actual learning. They merely supplement or facilitate it. Failure to master basic techniques can be fatal as Ian pointed out. I don't want to be in an aircraft piloted by someone who is reading the instructions on how to land the plane on his or her cell phone.

Memorization has been demonized in modern education trends. http://elearnhero.com/memorization/ . Yet our brains are made to memorize things. There is no reason to prevent our students from using their memories, in the long run they will have to use what they had memorize whether we like it or not. On the other hand not all the information available on the internet is useful, so as educators we should promote critical thinking and teach our students to identify credible information from false or incomplete information, and evaluate any data they found on the internet. Please see this article on the topic of critical thinking and thinking skills https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/49144/critical-thinking-skills-to-help-students-better-evaluate-scientific-claims

Memorizing facts, in and of itself, is not as important as critical thinking to know what to do with the information, i.e. how to apply it.

That is information that is much harder to find via a smartphone.

I agree with Micheal.. The process of application would first require test of memories and understanding of the subject matter. However, it is important to note the the educational system is very dynamic and constantly evolving with technological advancement.

Just memoerising facts either in short or long tem is not a real knowlwdge...my favorite question fpr students is: why? That is where they need to make sure they understand concepts, their causes and consequences.

Matt, hi!

Do you read the answers? Ir seems all here agree that the answer to your question " In the modern classroom, how useful is short term and long term memory now that information is instantly accessible via technological means?" is : humans stay humans and the process of learning is based on their memory. It runs this way... Memory is something which can be trained and has to be trained, especially in yang age. So, educational practicies like "this poem - by hard" are important. With or without Internet. The synaptic links and all around this have to be established and trained. Memory - this is the functionning and the structure of the entire brain.

Best,

Velina

My take on this, as many have said, is that we need to determine what is important to keep in long-term memory and what isn't. If a Software Engineer has to consult Google or tutorial sites each day he needs to write a "while loop" I would probably fire him. But if a linguist needs this consultation each time I wouldn't mind. The core function of the linguist has nothing to do with while loops or writing software code. The software engineer however would use while loops likely every day. Students must be made to remember stuff at the core of the course.

Think of it a the problem of whether or not to provide look up tables for Laplace or z-transforms in an exam or not. Working from memory is always faster than working by smartphone. We should demand that students use their brains but the educator will have to decide how far to push memory. The time that students use to memorise a lookup table with 200 entries may better be used by the students to learn 2 new scientific principles.

Ian and Gregg have used more extreme situations to highlight the importance of learning through memory; although is it not true that both of these jobs (pilot/heart surgeon) require the practitioner to verify actions through a checklist? As Michael says, critical thinking is more important than memorizing information - knowing what to do with stored information. Using these two examples, away from a classroom environment, what would be the difference in using technology (smartphone etc) to using another person as an observer/mentor assuming that information could be accessed just as quickly through both mediums.

Situation: an aircraft's engine has failed, you are the lone pilot, the procedure for restarting the engine is too complex and rare to memorize - would the more efficient way of acquiring the necessary information come from radioing for help and have someone read from a manual or use your smartphone which has stored procedures to guide you through the process?

This is of course an extreme example, in a classroom sense, what use is having learners memorize such information as dates/times/names? In a poetry exam, the marks come primarily from critical and creative thinking, however, names for poetic devices must still be used and remembered which is still testing memory for marks. If a learner was allowed a smartphone in such an exam, he/she could look up the required terms but NOT be able to look up how to critically/creatively think. Which skill is more important in this situation - the ability to remember device names or the ability to creatively think.

Can technology not be used to supplement creative thinking? Unless we are all aiming to win a quiz show by memorizing facts and figures, surely examinations should now purely test how a learner uses information creatively, and not place importance on the memorization of names and dates.

Matt: Our children still need reference points. E.g. 1066, 1945. Furthermore, although they do not have to be "party trick" memorisers, they still need to learn how to memorise. (A Bangladeshi once asked my cell number, repeated it to memorise it, and confirmed his memorisation with me at the end of the party!)

Drama players and stand-up comics need to learn their lines, and we admire them for this.

Matt in the situation that you mentioned, the pilot had better have remembered the procedures for a "dead stick" landing or he too will be dead. A dead stick landing is for landing the airplane without power. It is one of the things you have to memorize and practice in pilot training. The ground is moving up so fast that you do not have any time to look up anything.

Interesting question, but perhaps a lot more complex than presented. Learning involves short-term memory and transfer of that information to long term memory which can come in handy (at times). The key here is determining what kind of information is worth the time and effort to commit to long term memory. For school age children (K-12), a majority (not all) of the curriculum is disconnected non-sense that students forget within 2-4 weeks after the test - Ask yourself, how much do you remember of what you "learned" in school (and most of us on this site were pretty good at school). I think as adults we learn when information is intrinsically valuable to us - we might use the internet to help build the knowledge, plus experience, plus application - and this knowledge typically sticks.

Looking up disconnected information in the Internet is just fine (and helpful at times), but we need to be able to evaluate the accuracy and quality of that information, and use that information to build understanding, knowledge, skills. And, as the question implies (at least to me) that would mean changing our current school learning goals and curriculum dramatically.

Many students who are attending K12 schools, can not even use the scientific calculator to input the numbers into formulas provided since the basic knowledge that was supposed to happen up to grade 8 was disregarded as being unimportant. Some students would even make the comment that the calculator is wrong:-) when providing its answers.

Students should know how to calculate by using memory and their brain/mind first. As they learn the formulas, they should also be able to memorize them. All tests given today are accompanied by check sheet formulas. Why?

Many classes have mixed populations therefore it becomes even more difficult to see how many struggle when learning math and science.

Should I mention that the number of students being able to learn science (chemistry, physics, etc.) is at a very low level since it is too difficult for many of them to understand the concepts?

With a large multitude of resources available on the internet, the students in K12 should never be allowed to pass the grades without acquiring a high level of knowledge and understanding.

Agree that only accessing information us not sufficient but understanding it for practical application is needed. This can be done using short term use of devices.