Human Application

©iStockphoto.com/aluxum  Cristian Baitg

For every task we complete, it is best to begin with what is essential to that task. No matter how complex the task, if you can break it down into doable time-bound tasks, you can complete it. However, if you are not completing what is essential to the task, you will not complete the task! In this post I am going to try completing an important, but complex task: discussing the relevance of learning and human application to each other. 

In my first post, I talked about how applying technology resources can help us do things that we ordinarily would not be able to do by virtue of one's abilities--strengths and weaknesses--alone. I said that human application involves more than entertainment or engagement alone. I also said that human application is a relationship between one's efforts to use one's abilities and something else used within a process to achieve some result by a deadline or throughout some duration. That something else could be technology resources. 

That something else will always involve using some of your learning skills, especially your sensory abilities, memory, attention, and other cognitive skills. Think about it. Using a technology resource to help you manage your time or take notes or store and organize computer files involves using your learning abilities to not simply learn how to use it, but also to actually use it. Try using your Evernote account or mobile device without looking about it or thinking about it. You can't! Looking and thinking about it are learning abilities, and you'll use them with everything you use or apply. 

I think a definition of learning is hard to give, but I’ll give it a shot and try to live with myself if my definition has flaws. I have a philosophical background, which analyses and synthesizes a lot and is hard for me to escape. Rationalists say the key is reason and reflection. Empiricists say the key is experience. I think reflection and experience are both important, but only when understood in terms of sensory and cognitive abilities that one has. Learning is something each individual can do, not something only a few are capable of because of gifts inherent in their natures.

I think that learning is more than what meets the eyes, ears, nose, taste and touch. Learning can involve these things, but not all learning topics require each one or any one them. A science of learning can look to internal processes of a mind to understand how learning and experience are more than observation. Yet, much of the scientific community seems to restrict itself to that which we can all observe out of a fear of generalizing private idiosyncrasies that either are not observable to all or do not apply to all instances for all observers. Unfortunately this puts some restrictions on scientific efforts to understand and defend the important roles of cognitive abilities in learning.

I think the five biggest restrictions one can put on learning, “scientific” or otherwise, are to (1) ignore data relevant to topics one wants to learn about, (2) assume that all things of a certain kind have the same fundamental, overall nature (e.g. assuming that human nature as common abilities exhausts the nature of an individual), (3) ignore differences, whether subtle or obvious, (4) commit fallacies in one’s reasoning, and (5) ignore, under use or sabotage one’s own cognitive abilities.

Learning also involves bodily activity to help manage information. We currently live and learn with technologies and other resources that we interact with to help us consume information, manage or store information, and create or share information.

So what is learning? Well, it involves using the sensory, cognitive, and bodily gifts inherent in one’s nature and those one has developed at a given time to acquire new skills or abilities, practice performing to meet some standard, acquire new knowledge, and understand what one knows in new ways. Conceptual abilities are essential to some types of learning. Sensory abilities are essential to some types of learning. Bodily abilities are essential to some types of learning. However, none of these three types of abilities are necessary for all kinds of learning. Memory and attention are!

Cognitive abilities, especially attention and memory, and the three kinds of aforementioned abilities—conceptual, sensory, and bodily—are building blocks that help us learn, develop and use more complex learning abilities like academic skills, professional skills, and self-management skills. 

Each of us understands what motor skills we have, in some sense, when we use them. Maybe you don’t know the anatomical, physiological, biomechanical, and neurological details of how you get around, but you at least have a user knowledge of decisions you make and for how to move your eyes, arms, legs and other parts of your body. Now consider what you mental or cognitive resources you use on a daily basis. You know, those powers of thinking, imagination, memory, attention and creativity, among others. You may not know every anatomical, physiological, or neurological detail about using them, but you make decisions to use them based on how you have used them before and your awareness of them. 

Yes, we can use technology resources to help us perform a task or achieve an objective. Doing so will require some knowledge of how that resource can be used. Knowing what is essential to that resource is a great start since what is accidental to it can change. Since you cannot use technology without the use of learning skills,  you should also know how to use your abilities strategically to accomplish what is essential to your task.

I said before that mere entertainment, though a good thing, especially for engaging people, is missing something that human application and learning involve. Remember that human application is a relationship between one's efforts to use one's abilities and something else used within a process to achieve some result by a deadline or throughout some duration. That something else could be technology resources or one's awareness of one's knowledge and abilities.

Human application of oneself or technology resources does involve using one's learning abilities--which are just sensory, cognitive, and bodily abilities that can be used to learn--but so does entertainment. Well, entertainment and and human application have that much in common, and being entertained certainly makes human application and learning much more enjoyable. However, there is something missing from entertainment alone that is in human application: effort to try improving something in your life, be it your own knowledge, learning abilities, or some result(s) external to you. Someone who is only entertaining oneself or only being entertained at the moment is content with not trying to improve some result, process, or ability outside of being entertained. When we learn, however, we are trying to improve our knowledge (e.g. learning a language, increasing your vocabulary, or looking at prior knowledge in new ways), our learning abilities themselves (e.g. increasing your memory or attention span), or some human application involving how one can apply one's abilities to some complex task (e.g. work on the job, professional development, or designing a course). Human application involves trying to improve.

Other than the fact that learning skills are used every time you use technology resources or do any task whatsoever, what unites learning and applying technology in ways that point to specific tasks to be completed? What is the glue that holds together all of our efforts to learn, to complete a task, or to apply technology resources? Value! For value, we must also look at and inside ourselves to figure out what we want, need, and can benefit from. We must look inward for value, room for improvement, and for developing awareness of our capabilities if we are to learn, perform, and live well. 

If we are to find new ways to apply technology resources to get or do what we value, then we must also look at what we are able to do in new ways. If you can increase your awareness of your skills and abilities, you can not only use them more strategically to accomplish your tasks or apply technology to accomplish your task well, but also look at your abilities in new ways. If you can look at your abilities in new ways, you can find new, more effective ways of applying yourself and your technology resources to growing past your current limits--to learning, performing, and living well.