Stephen Downes

Michael Oman-Reagan takes a (well-argued) stand against the recent spate of stories claiming students "learn better" using notebooks and pens. He writes, "The pressure to use 'real books' and write in a notebook (preferably a moleskine, right?) has emerged as part of a growing anti-technology fetish among academics, and popular culture broadly. I get the appeal and I love books! I would love it if I could do that, I want all paper books, a room full of them, with ferns and armchairs and whisky and whatever — but it just isn't how I learn. And it's expensive, and you have to move them around. And you can't search in them in the same way. The more precarious academic lives become the more a book collection is a luxury many can't afford in terms of cost and other factors." Via Doug Belshaw.