Always hard to disagree with Dick, and apart from the dubious use of (brackets) - the only thing I'd challenge would be the assertion that "There is a view that says that every Google query is a piece of shallow Agile Learning"

OK, it may be a view, but it is flawed. A Google query may be seen as a part of a learning process - but only once, the first time it's used - after that, the user has learned a skill and will use it without thought - to return 'answers' not necessarily related to a learning process (as an example (and probably not a very good one) to find out where I can buy the cheapest toner cartridges).

The challenge, IMHO, is to enable the user, upon their first use of Google [add other search facilities here for balance] to RECOGNISE that they have learned, and then fit this into the iteration; 'I am now able to', 'I can demonstrate' and 'I can now recognise'.

But that's not really what it's all about. It's about the technology and Dick is quite correct in recognising how the likes of Android and smart-phones ARE already changing our lives, he's also correct in his analysis that this equates to the early days of technology, with the ZX80, Spectrum, Acorn and BBC Micro - e.g., "You ain't seen nothin' yet".

There needs to be a way to identify what is happening as 'learning', and a way to use this as a launchpad for the learner - having recognised their ability to learn, to learn more.

Thanks for the comment...

As for people only learning the first time they do a Google query, I can't speak for Dick, but I assumed he meant the learning that we construct from the results of the search, not the learning about how to do a search.

If you look up a word in an old-fashioned dictionary, what you learn is the meaning of the word. And if you look up another word, you learn something new and different, surely? It's not just about refining your dictionary skills (though you may do that as well).

I'm more intrigued, though, by the point in your last para "There needs to be a way to identify what is happening as 'learning', and a way to use this as a launchpad for the learner - having recognised their ability to learn, to learn more." Why? In everyday life we all learn stuff without stopping to think that we are learning stuff... this lack of identification of 'learning' doesn't seem to stop us from learning other stuff — does it?

There's another point about the value of reflecting on learning, and the metacognitive skills of improving our learning by doing so. But as I read your para, it seemed you were making a different point from this. So I'm curious... (my Why? above is a genuine question, not a challenge or a refutation)

"In everyday life we all learn stuff without stopping to think that we are learning stuff... this lack of identification of 'learning' doesn't seem to stop us from learning other stuff — does it?"

This depends upon who you believe "us" to be. The greatest barrier to the uptake of education is the belief that "I can't do that", or "I'm not clever enough to go to [college / Uni / whatever].

Enabling someone who is not you, I - or Dick (in other words, the great and the good who think we understand an educational process when it happens) to recognise they're 'engaged' in a learning process is as equally important, IMO, as the learning process they're engaged in.

OK, thanks for the clarification — think I get your point now.

The greatest barrier to the uptake of education is the belief that "I can't do that", or "I'm not clever enough to go to [college / Uni / whatever].

I think you're saying we need to tackle and get over that barrier.

I think I'm saying (just thinking aloud here) perhaps we can now get round the barrier. So if people associate "uptake of education" with that fear of institutions, can we offer agile alternatives where people learn outside institutional settings (though possibly with some institutional support hidden away somewhere). That means we don't trigger their fear, and they can learn stuff while remaining blissfully 'ignorant' that they're doing something similar to what goes on in institutions.

Of course, our two approaches (if I've characterised them correctly) are not mutually exclusive, and it would probably make sense to do both...