Views on current ICT in education debate

Hurray for the government: a new week, a new idea about education. Computing, ICT, digital literacy, call it what you will, is the flavour of the week and Michael Gove is due to make a speech on the subject on Wednesday. I am guessing that the three main themes of this will be that: one there needs to be more rigour in the teaching of computer skills; two that this is vital for the UK’s future economic competitiveness; and three that all schools should teach this irrespective of how ‘free’ from Local Authority control they are.

It’s not that I am necessarily against the teaching of computing in schools. Running an organisation called Digital Explorer, it would be pretty contrary if I were. However, statements such as Ed Vaizey’s comment that knowing how a computer works should be “on a par with a knowledge of the arts and humanities” don’t really help. (more…)

The endless immensity of the sea

If you want to build a ship don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Planting seeds…

When I run a project, I never really know what’s going to happen. Like a lot of people I imagine, I promise a whole load of things to funders without really knowing what the outcomes of the project or expedition will be.

With the final episode of the Pakistan episode launched last week, it’s time to celebrate the achievements of the young people as they start on their journeys and to thank all the funders, supporters and collaborators who made this possible.

Special thanks to the financial backers of the project, who put their faith in us to deliver something. I hope that they have watched the video below and are proud of what they have allowed to happen.

Now the long journey to find the funding for the next one…

Conversations on education and exploration with a Tibetan monk

Good morning class, here’s your new teacher

I didn’t recognise Tenzin Tsepak initially. The streets around the main temple complex in McLeod Ganj, North India, were thronging with a crowd welcoming HH the Dalai Lama back on his return from a trip to the USA. Tenzin, of course, looked older, since we first met fifteen years ago. He was also now a layman. A “turbulent” marriage with a American woman had ended a number of years previously, and a diet of pizza and masala chai from the new monastery cafe had replaced the meagre rations of the monastic kitchen.

We caught up on this and that, eventually turning to what we were up to at the moment. Tenzin currently works as a translator for HH the Dalai Lama. I explained the work that I do with Digital Explorer and the problems that I faced trying to create a compassionate response from young people in Britain regarding issues that seem very far away. Why should a teenager care if his trainers are made in a sweatshop or that the ice shelves around the Antarctic and disappearing with their wildlife because of climate change? (more…)

Being in the field

I was lucky enough to be invited to a Health Education Event in Salfit, West Bank yesterday. It made me think about the Digital Explorer model and how the expeditions so far have been short-lived in terms of actual time in the field, although the digital legacy lives on.

Would it be better to have long-term field-based projects say in the Middle East or Brazil that would continue to create digital media material after the team had left. This would also mean getting involved in capacity building and provision of hardware to projects around the world.

Rather than a single set of ripples from an event, a shift in the model would allow for an ongoing conversation between young people in the UK and young people around the world on important issues.

Any thoughts gratefully received…

ps thank you to Dalal of Merlin for hosting me yesterday and reinvigorating my desire to spend more time in the field

What if?

Honda seem to have cornered the market in my thoughts this week…

What if we invested in young people and gave them a truly global education?

Hate something, Change something

Just watched this Honda advertisement again and it hit home…

Hate something

Change something

Make something better

I think that’s what drives Digital Explorer.

Hate something? Yes, I hate the fact that we are lurching towards massive, global environmental and cultural issues and not providing our children with the education they need to deal with this.

Change something? Yes, put on great interactive, online, digital expeditions and build capacity amongst pupils and teachers in the UK to do the same thing themselves.

Make something better? I think by harnessing pupil to pupil education, the power of the internet and some inspiring young people on a digital media platform, we might just do it.

Come on board to make a better world.

Great advert for renewable energy

I just love this advertisement for renewable energy…

Give the kids the skills they need…

I was interviewed by Brit Hammer a couple of weeks ago and have been meaning to link to it.