Andy Matuschak

July 2024. Part of “Letters from the Lab”, a series of essays on my research written for patrons. You can also listen to this essay (29 minutes). If you want to make an educational technologist’s eyes sparkle, just mention “The Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer”. It’s a futuristic interactive schoolbook, described in Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, where it lifts a young girl out of poverty and into sovereign power. It’s my field’s most canonical vision of a wildly powerful learning environment.

Your ideal learning environment Talks about learning technology often center on technology. Instead, I want to begin by asking: what do you want learning to be like—for yourself? If you could snap your fingers and drop yourself into a perfect learning environment, what’s your ideal? One way to start thinking about this question is to ask: what were the most rewarding high-growth periods of your life?

Part of “Letters from the Lab”, a series of informal essays on my research written for patrons. Originally published April 2023; revised and made public May 2023. You can also listen to me read this essay (28 minutes).