Aaron Carpenter's blog

During the Elluminate session a wonderful phrase was brought up: Cognitive Offloading. It basically means we no longer bother remembering things that can be easily found in another source. As Eric brought up, you use this every day and don’t even realize it. Own a cell phone? How many of those phone numbers do you know by heart?

If your childhood was anything like mine there was only one phone in the house and there was a list taped to the wall with the most likely numbers that we would use. After a while I didn’t even need to look at the list. I had all the important ones memorized. But now that’s all gone. I have the ability now to retain a total of 6 phone numbers and I couldn’t be more pleased.

Why would I be happy with a lack of memory? For one, I no longer feel that my mind is going to waste with things that are not really worth remembering. I can spend my brain space more frugally, and use it to remember long dialogue sequences from Monty Python instead.

So how can we use this phenomenon about the brain in Learning Design? It will allow us to focus on the Why, and not the steps needed for the How. We can use technology efficiently so we can think about the bigger picture. And isn’t that the point of education?