Scholar turned Duolingo chief Luis von Ahn tackles language tests

It's a little sad that they are trying to get the average engagement down to 30 seconds. As he says, “Mobile phones have a big, big problem, …things built to be addictive and not particularly educational…We need to deliver education in a way that’s compatible with this reality." No, you need to design engaging and effective educational experiences. Does he really believe that 30 seconds a day will allow someone to learn a language effectively? (I have now accumulated over 800 consecutive days with Duolingo Spanish, and still struggle with basic conversations, though I do know how to say "There is an elephant in my shower.") If he wants to design a tutor that can be as effective as a human tutor, perhaps he should be liaising more with Carnegie Learning and LearnLab at Carnegie Mellon. They have consistently attained perfect scores from EdReports.org, the K-12 independent, gold-standard leader in evaluating instructional resources, building software that delivers adaptive, intelligent, individualized practice with one-on-one support that mirrors a human tutor better than any other platform as well as encouraging collaborative, student-centered learning. They do not create "gamified" 30-second snippets that make the users feel good and get brownie points, but don't really create an optimal learning environment.