I visited BETT last week. I’ve been to this enormous educational technology show in London almost every year for the past eight or so. Now it may just be indicative of my increasing age and correspondingly elevated rates of grumpiness, but I admit that every year I find it less exciting and relevant; every year the thrill of finding a golden nugget seems to diminish, swamped beneath hordes of young Primary teachers excitedly stashing cheap promotional SWAG into carrier bags. But as I say, that’s maybe just my cynical age talking.
Technologically there are always new things to see at BETT. A fancy gadget here, a faster system there. There are many shiny trinkets to generate consumer passion on display. But educationally? Educationally I’m afraid it has felt suffocated and jaded for some time.
Perhaps that was why the biggest talking point this year was not any technology, but rather Michael Gove’s show-opening speech in which he announced the Government’s intention to disapply the programmes of study in ICT from September 2012. Everywhere you turned it seemed that someone had an opinion on the exciting new landscape offering opportunities for The Future Of ICT In Schools. Well, it made a change from hearing yet another tedious sales pitch about Interactive Whiteboards and VLEs. And much as I vehemently disagree with just about everything else he has said about education, I thought that in this instance Gove was pretty much spot on.
Of course the discussions about the implications of Mr Gove’s speech continue to reverberate and develop post-BETT as ICT Subject Leaders and teachers all over England feverishly consider and discuss the question of The Future Of ICT In Schools. Interestingly, opinions seem to be split into one of two camps. On the one hand there are those (hanging around Starbucks armed with Netbooks running Windows 7) who are fixating on the delicious morsel that is Computer Science. On the other there are those (posing with iPads and asking Siri for directions to the nearest independent coffee shop) who have interpreted Digital Literacy in a more media-oriented manner and are even now smacking their lips in anticipation of teaching Year 7 how to uninstall MS Office and go and do something less boring instead. It’s going to be interesting to see how these two camps navigate the months ahead as more detailed thinking eventually emerges from the DFE (ha!). Who will prove to have made the wisest choices in the long run?
Not to say that the two camps are not finding middle ground. They do both seem to unite around the idea that youngsters might learn about programming by creating games. This inevitably leads to further disagreement of course, as camp two talk excitedly about the iOS platform and the other witters on about Flash (stop sniggering at the back).
Now I’m no gamer, but I do understand that youngsters learn transferable skills through the creation of games (and possibly the playing of some of them). I’ll even give you the word ‘valuable’ in that sentence if you want it. Indeed, I might even stretch to ‘invaluable’ on a good day. But those invaluable skills will not necessarily be in the realms of programming. They will be skills wrapped up in creative process, risk taking and imaginative problem finding and solving. The ‘code’ is just the language and you can say Nothing Very Interesting in any language you want. It remains Nothing Very Interesting. Nada Muy Interesante. Någonting Mycket Intressant. ничего не очень интересно. You get the idea...
In case you hadn’t already guessed as much, I think it’s fair to say that my own sympathies , such as they are, lie with the second of these two camps. I may pass on the Siri interaction though. Never understood why I would want to talk to my phone when it wasn’t connected to another (real) person on the other end. But again, see comments about my age in the opening paragraph.
The key here however is ultimately not whether you are in the Starbucks/Windows 7 camp or the iOS/indie coffee shop gang. It’s not whether you celebrate opportunities for exploring the science of computing or explore digital storytelling through the medium of video and/or song (for example). No, the key (as it always really was and ever will be) is about (re)designing the provision that you offer young people in your community such that they are engaged and excited about that provision. It’s about creating opportunities to investigate, create and share with the world.
Let’s not squander the opportunity. Let’s empower our young people to Say Something Magical.
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