Nathan Holbert

New book incoming! Everybody has ideas about learning, but much of it is confusing, demoralizing, and flat out wrong. In How to Learn Anything we pull together research on cognition, play, and design to share how we can all create powerful, more meaningful spaces for learning. Coming soooon (ish)!

The only analysis I want to hear about Obama's Cheesecake Factory comment is from the @doughboys.bsky.social. Praying they've recorded an emergency pod on the matter.

If you are too young to really remember the Obama years, conservatives were like this every single day. He really did just break their brains.

Nope. I said what I said!

How does holding remote school on election day makes sense? Presumably the reason you make election day a holiday is to make it easier for people to go vote. Remote school means parents of young children have to be home for their kids. Maybe a bit easier for teachers -- cutting out commute times?

Not for nothing, just remembering I had a great time with Dragon Age: Veilguard.

The more i see stuff like this from people heading projects the more i think that the ability to actually hit send on a work, warts and all, is a skill that is necessary lest the allure of "perfect" eat everything and everyone you love

Oh for sure. Plenty of people cosplaying learning sciences by adopting science of learning terminology. Just wanted to (re-)claim some ground for people trying to take a broader view. And also: sigh. Do we really have to re-litigate DI? Can people just read the discourse from 2006-7?

This thread inspired by reading posts on direct instruction while writing recommendation letters for my students who are doing genuinely innovative work that spans dance, engineering, AI, and play. The arrogance to suggest "cognitive science" proves none of that matters for learning boggles my mind!

“It also means curriculum that is locally relevant (not universally scripted) matters. That community (teacher and other students) is a core part of learning -- not incidental or a distraction. DI is fine, but anyone telling you it's a magic bullet because "cognitive sciences" is selling something.🧵

This is a great thread- not only does it bring back memories of grad school, but it also is a helpful reminder of how theories of how learning happens connect to theories of what schools are for.

"Science of learning" proponents often claim their proposals are more likely to be sound because they are grounded in the cognitive sciences. The truth is that they are committed to a very narrow set of cognitive theories, of which there are in fact many!

prototyping isn't about *the prototype*, it's about the shit you have to go through to create a prototype that works

Congrats to Lula on overcoming Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump to defeat Hospital Pervert Jr., even as his opposition literally blocked off roads and turned off bus service during election day. Fascists are scary but they are always, 100% of the time, ultimately gigantic fucking losers.

You should think enough about your own child to have at LEAST three answers to why they are special. If you don’t, rather than brag about how you offloaded your care to an AI, please allow the soul-crushing embarrassment to motivate you to spend more time with your kid.

Nice work Brazil! Show the way

I’m sure folks know this but you don’t need to know about dual cooling systems to know that you don’t want or need a data center in your community. Additionally, no, we don’t need a Black-owned data center in the name of a “seat at the table.” just to get out ahead on that foolishness.

100%. This plus the belief that teaching is just telling is how you end up with school districts putting AI tutors in everything.

Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse rips

Wrote an op-ed in 2020 warning that the initial emergency response during COVID to digitize instruction must not be taken as evidence education should and could be done online. It was, and here we are.

The idea that there are people that are both frightened AND mobilized by furries is hilarious.

A little taste of an in-progress draft of chapter 9 from the upcoming "How to Learn Anything"

A little taste of an in-progress draft of chapter 9 from the upcoming "How to Learn Anything"

MST3K: The RiffTrax Experiments ep. 2 is DEATHSPORT and it'll be available for purchase tomorrow, Friday Oct. 23! IF you're a Kickstarter backer, you (hopefully) just got it. Check your mail! Hope you enjoy.

Love that iOS asks me every couple of weeks if I want to activate focus mode while I’m at work. I’m sorry little phone you think I’m texting everyone in my contacts list at 2pm on accident?

Love that iOS asks me every couple of weeks if I want to activate focus mode while I’m at work. I’m sorry little phone you think I’m texting everyone in my contacts list at 2pm on accident?

We played a bit of A Quiet Year in my game design class today. Absolutely love the map mechanic as a shared object for collaborative story telling.

Went to my favorite library spot early this morning to get a little book writing done and thankfully someone left me a cheat sheet.

I think my analysis pushes in the direction of seeing the core conflict as one between capital and labor. If that's the case, I don't know that there's one specific strategy, but (1) recognize that this is a fight, and (2) solidarity is king.

🔥🔥🔥 Intellectual tools for fighting injustice is my love language

Whoa RIP BioWare! They were responsible for at least two decades of some of my all time favorite games. What a waste.

Unconscionable to be on “X” at this point. Just a cesspit. Except for banking; I do my banking there & don’t see a problem.

We played a bit of A Quiet Year in my game design class today. Absolutely love the map mechanic as a shared object for collaborative story telling.