This weeks symposium merged into the land of education and in particular VCE. The point was raised about what we really learnt and retained from our high school life. Ellen wrote an interesting blog post about some statistics she found on this article which states that medical students forget 25-35% of basic science knowledge after just one year, and have forgotten up to 80% in 25 years.

I must admit that I completely agree with this research and to a degree think I would have lost more than 35% of my learnt knowledge after my first year out of high school. I’m the sort of student that can walk out of an exam (and ace it) only to forget everything by the next day.

It’s interesting to think about how we are taught and if these methods are working in todays technologically advanced society.

With more and more schools investing in ‘learning technologies’ such as iPads and laptops it will be interesting to see if these statistics will change throughout the school life of these ‘tech savy’ kids that today’s schooling system is pushing out.

If studies such as this one by National Geographic and this one are anything to go by then iPads and other new technologies seem to be the only way to go.