Our series of picks from Brunel’s designers continues with Dominic Sebastian’s selection of a TED Talk by David Merrill of Siftables fame.

Dominic explained his choice: “I’ve always been fascinated by how advances in technology and mobile devices can enhance the learning experience. People are often split into being left or right brained thinkers, the battle of creative versus reason in thought. I personally feel, however, that anyone can become very knowledgable in any area they choose, and it’s not the content they necessarily find difficult to digest, it’s often how that content is presented to them.

“This video shows a fantastic example of a new interactive method of teaching arithmetic, where even those who do not “get” maths would quickly gain an understanding of how the variables interact with each other. The most enlightening piece is his closing quote of tools that ‘bring information into our world, on our terms’, demonstrated when the child invents his own narrative, it’s his story to create. Even though it is a crude example, the implications of how this format could be developed with more complicated variables shows tremendous promise.”

Dominic is one a team of designers from Brunel University participating at MEX on 4th/5th May 2011. They’ll be contributing their design skills and creative ideas to the MEX Pathway working sessions.

You can see all the other Brunel picks here.