Finding the Learning Sweet Spot
In exploring education and understanding the intersection between tech and education I’ve come to appreciate the time I spent learning in elementary school. At that young age I was open with every subject and wasn’t critical of my surroundings. Nobody knew how to use Unity, Unreal, or even code for AR/VR. Learning something new at an older age became harder. It became harder because I lost patience as I grew older.
Around two years ago when I was studying graphic design, one of my goals was to learn how to make a web app using a backend language. I assumed that it would be easy and quick to learn technology like Ruby on Rails because I heard stories all of these “self-taught coders” who are now full-fledged developers. However, I was wrong to think this way because what I originally thought would take two months became two years. Why? Because learning something new is difficult.
Above is a diagram of my two year journey in learning how to make a web app. This vicious cycle is what I like to call the learning blackhole. I was initially motivated to learn something, but once I ran out of inspiration I gave up and looked for an easier method. Learning became this mundane task of trying to find the easiest route in order gain new knowledge rather than actually learning something. Essentially, I wanted the “get smart fast” equivalent of the “get rich quick” scheme.
Below is my comparison on two different learning styles.
Learning by struggling looks ugly and hard, but you ultimately end up where you want to be. A small step taken in the right direction is a step taken nonetheless. At this point, you might be thinking that struggling through something for two years is not worth it. You’re probably right, and I agree with you. However, because of this journey I was able to learn Unity (software to make 3-D scenes) and C# (coding language used in Unity) effectively because I knew that as long as I struggled through the hard steps in the beginning, that I would actually gain valuable knowledge instead of using the “get smart fast” method.
We are currently in the process of making a working AR demo for our product and if it wasn’t for my two-year journey, as interns we would probably be in panic mode.
Andrea Everman, Sarah Mitrano, Ian Morrow, and Daniel Park are interns at Moment in New York. Sarah is a recent graduate of Washington University with a BFA in communication design; Daniel is a junior at Parsons pursuing a BBA in strategic design and management; and Ian and Andrea are pursuing MDes degrees at the IIT Institute of Design. They’re all currently exploring the intersection of mixed reality and children’s education. You can follow the team’s progress this summer on Momentary Exploration.
UPDATE: The Moment summer 2016 intern project is live here.
