The internet has been pushing towards the so-called Long Tail ever since its inception.

The ‘long tail’ of a distribution graph is the portion where events (ie. sales) are spread thinly among many units. The other part of the graph is known as the ‘head’. In a distribution graph showing the sales of books, for example, the head of the graph would be populated by the bestsellers (generally including some thriller knocked out by one of James...

New technology is expensive. And mobile learning has, up to now, been tied to the rise of new technology – smartphones and tablets. So how relevant is mobile learning to countries whose populations can’t afford the asking price for an Android or iOS device? After all, the priorities of developing nations lie with infrastructure. What good is an iPad with no running water or sanitation? Perhaps it’s unfeasible to expect mobile learning to have...

You brushed your teeth and your mum gave you a gold star to add to your collection. You did pretty well in class and your teacher gave you a merit. You did OK at university and you got a degree certificate. In every instance, the abstract is objectified. As we get older, and as our horizons both deepen and broaden, it’s tempting to believe that our goals get further away, and become more abstract.

Except, fundamentally, as adults our goals...

Ananth Pai had a problem with his third grade class. His 20 students ranged from the 10th to the 90th percentile of achievement. How to teach the more advanced students without leaving the others behind? Or – how to teach the less able students without compromising the others? There was no way he could helpfully instruct such a diversely able group.

So he began furnishing his classroom with technology. He bought 11 Nintendo DS’s, a few...

After creating the pigeon-guided missile, American polymath B. F. Skinner invented a teaching machine in the late 50s, intended to improve upon the traditional classroom learning experience.

The problem with the traditional classroom – as Skinner saw it – is that students don't receive feedback often enough, since the teacher’s attention is divided among the entire class. His teaching machine would prompt students, often requiring them...

Or: Why It All Comes Down To Jobs

As Joey ‘Clams’ Scala declared in Martin Scorsese’s ‘Mean Streets’, – “We don’t pay mooks.”

MOOCs, likewise, are rarely paid.

Standing for Massive Open Online Course, MOOCs have been gradually transforming the future of higher education for the past year or so, and now look to be gaining velocity. A MOOC is an online course that generally allows students to watch lectures, read notes and take tests, though...

New solutions to old problems

As the GSMA study on mobile learning (Transforming Learning through mEducation) explains, mobile learning could be the answer to some of the challenges that education faces worldwide. The problems identified were:

Mobile learning provides a solution...

Windows 8 is out in the wild, and Windows Phone 8 will be with us shortly.

While Windows (in all its many forms) continues to dominate the personal computer market, it's mobile tech that's enjoying rapid growth. Smartphones and tablets are constantly in the spotlight, both for ever-increasing sales figures and breaking new technological ground – and, of course, stirring up a few tasty court cases at the same time. And it's this growth in...

India has the one of the highest numbers of mobile phone subscribers in the world. With over 900 million mobile users, it is second only to China. However, although the number of mobile users is huge, the number of smartphone users is less remarkable. According to thehindubusinessline.com, only 10-15 million people in India currently own a smart phone. Although this number isn’t exactly tiny, when you consider India’s 1.2 billion population...

When it comes to education, there’s a divide between East and West (sort of). Eastern nations’ education systems have historically favoured rote learning – that is, memorisation – compared with Western schooling, which often cites creativity and innovation as key goals of a rounded education.

Rote learning has become seen as an antiquated method of teaching which eschews understanding in favour of mindless parroting. The...