Last night I thoroughly enjoyed watching the program “Derek Tastes of Earwax“, BBC Horizon (2004). Full transcript is available on the BBC website.
A very rough outline - we are all have a varying degrees of crossover between our senses. In some people this is extreme, a condition called synaesthesia. This is where a blind man can see colour as a response to hearing specific words.
This program brought home to me why digital media is so exciting - it taps into this synaesthetic behaviour of our brain. As a corollary it reveals why it is so important to create engaging learning tools and materials which fully exploiting visual, audio, motion, interactive and social possibilities.
This may all sound a bit obvious, but the exciting part for me is the hard research of how the brain and sense works. Drawing my own conclusions from - this puts the use of digital media/tools for education on a firmer ground.
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