Learning Experience
I heard of a term called Learning Experience (LX) while attending SXSW Edu conference. The term user experience (UX) refers to the experience that a user has while using any product. Mobile application designers spend a lot of time on putting up the best user experience for the customers. They continue to modify the user interface to provide the best user experience. I think learning experience should also be designed in a similar way.
I have a long background in mobile application development. I have personally seen that mobile applications are not used if the UX is broken. Similarly if the LX is broken the kids would not study. The teachers who set the curriculum try their best to make learning experience good for students. UX is an iterative process. The app designers continue to build, measure and learn about features in a mobile or web app. Similarly the LX designers should also start measuring and learning actively about the use of curriculum and resources. This is one area where I think a lot of progress can be made in the coming years. Mobile and web application designers can bring new energy into this field of learning experience (LX) design.
The learning experience designer should make the life of teachers easier and should give them scalable solutions to teach a class. Teachers and physical infrastructure are the biggest cost drivers in school education. If we can innovatively reduce the teacher’s time and use of expensive physical resources of the school then we can reduce the cost of education.
Friends and relatives exert a great amount of influence on a student but unfortunately not much has been done to improve this side of the equation. Also most of the times government or school can not do much in this direction without becoming draconian.
I have researched a lot on design, pedagogy and psychology to shortlist a few formats which can be scaled effectively and can help to create a learning environment for the kids. There are 4 things which are essential in defining the environment around kids. They are :
- Visuals
- Stories
- Games
- Music and Dance
We can use these 4 scalable formats to provide a good learning experience to kids. More on these in the coming posts.
I have founded an open education project called Fun2Do Labs. To know more about it visit : http://fun2dolabs.org . Subscribe to me on Medium to read my posts on education and technology.
