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.

It would be great if this latest fad in the national education conversation actually highlighted the good practice that exists in UK schools rather than repeating how poor everything is.

There needs to be a three-pronged approach to the issue of ICT in schools:

First, a decision about which items of ICT usage should be taught through other subjects (if they still exist in a years’ time). Examples could include:

• Use of word processing in English
• Use spreadsheets and databases in Science and Maths
• Internet research and analysis of reliability of sources in History
• Video conferencing with partner schools in MFL
• Digital photography and video in Art
• Online and social media safety in PSHE
• Blogs and digital mapping in Geography
• Use online campaigning tools in Citizenship

You get the idea. Pupils use digital tools to learn and communicate their ideas throughout the curriculum, a bit like previous national strategies on literacy and numeracy. This is already happening in many schools. It may well save time and energy for teachers if levels of competence in using various tools were agreed between departments. This would mean that as a Geography teacher you would know what your GCSE class should know about using spreadsheets and creating and interpreting graphs (they learnt this in Key Stage 3 Maths of course!).

Second, decide what should go into a computing class. ICT is probably a misnomer as this subject develops. This is where I become a bit stuck. What would I expect an intern to be able to do, when they come to work for Digital Explorer?

• An understanding of how to write a blog post and use html tags
• Formatting a range of digital media for use online, using tools such as image and video editing software
• An understanding of media sharing platforms and their relative benefits
• Use of digital mapping
• Basic coding (I taught myself how to write simple games in Basic using a Spectrum many moons ago and I think that this introduction made it easier for me to pick up using coding languages such as kml later in life)

I would like to be able to adapt and fix hardware in the same way that I would like to be better at car maintenance. I would love to be able to write little scripts that made life easier for me. In short, computing appeals to my creativity. I want to be able to make stuff. I find joy in the translation of lines of code into a wondrous digital environment.

The third aspect is rather more prosaic: infrastructure. Are there enough computers in working order for ICT to become a regular facet of teaching and learning across the curriculum? Will our attitudes to mobiles change with most students bringing a pocket to computer to school every day? Who will come to teach coding? Out of 28,000 new teachers in 2010, just 3 had computing-related degrees. I don’t blame them, when they can be out making a mint in the digital economy. Gove, do something clever, like subsidise company NI contributions if digital employees volunteer in schools once a week.

A caveat to end: technology is a tool not an end in itself. Digital Explorer uses technology because it enables us to share stories from the far-flung corners of the planet with classrooms across the world. Technology allows us to create and share content with a new ease. It cannot and does not replace the physical, personal and emotional journeys that lie at the centre of our work. This new emphasis on digital literacy in education must remember that young people still need to communicate and learn about ‘something’. My favourite example of innovation in ICT was the example of a school a few years ago now that had scrapped ICT classes completely and instead taught the Citizenship curriculum full-time, using ICT as a tool to support and extend the development of young people as engaged citizens. Now there’s an idea.

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

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…

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?

How does one increase mindfulness concerning issues and problems that are so distant from our everyday lives? Initially, Tenzin thought that I was asking a direct question about addressing suffering.

“It is there in the teachings, how we should deal with suffering.”

I explained that it was a problem of contemplating the suffering of other people and environments in distant places.

“Aah. This is subtle.”

We both laughed. There are no easy answers.

“They should meditate on this.”

We laughed again.

In my mind’s eye, I imagined a geography teacher stood in front of a class in Derbyshire.

“Right class, we’ve been studying Antarctica for the past few weeks. What I would like you to do now is meditate on the effects your personal habits have on ice shelf degradation. Let’s start with a mantra… Om…”

Ridiculous in so many ways and so right in others. I don’t see this form of education becoming a likely piece of pedagogical innovation any time soon, but it does raise questions about how and why we educate. Empathy exercises were fashionable for a time, role-plays and drama, but these seem more conceptual than compassionate activities designed to enhance understanding.

We talked about the recent expedition to Pakistan, and the importance of direct experience to create a compassionate attitude for others less fortunate and environments under threat. We agreed that those few who do have the opportunity of direct experience had a great responsibility to share and help others understand.

As we hone the expedition and education model for Digital Explorer, I have come up against this barrier of how the journey of a few can become a gateway for understanding for many. We are making great strides in creating transformative journeys for teams of young people, with the Pakistan expedition being our most successful to date.

The next months will be preparing the educational programme. This year’s expedition was the first that hasn’t been live. The security implications of broadcasting live video revealing the team’s identity and location, opened up some exciting new ways of working. We have decided to broadcast each day’s episode with associated blog posts on a weekly basis (starting on 10 November on www.offscreenexpedition.com). This not only allows teachers and pupils time to enjoy and debate the issues surrounding each episode, but also creates a three month window for the expedition participants to talk to schools and youth groups and for the expedition leaders to work with teachers.

And this is the real lesson that I learnt from talking to Tenzin. No amount of digital wizardry can replace the simple impact of one concerned and impassioned human being sharing their experiences directly with another.

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

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.